


Doctor Who - 12/Reader - The New Companion or Opposite of Impossible

by Sam (orphan_account)



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Adventure, Angst, Banter, Character Study, Drama, F/M, Friendship, Humour, You-reader fic, mentioning of previous companions and doctors, non-romantic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-09-30
Packaged: 2018-04-03 00:47:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 15
Words: 44,079
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4080157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Sam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is traveling alone. You work in a cafe in London and hate your job. One morning your paths cross. Will you join him in the Tardis? And when yes, how will it go? Banter, Humor, Adventure, Character Study, will get from light to serious. Angst, Drama.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 01_Run

**Author's Note:**

> So, this is my attempt on a new fic - about The 12th Doctor and you (the Reader).
> 
> What can I tell you about it; I am not sure how this will go, I have certain ideas, nice little scenes in mind, and somehow a storyline, but it’s vague.
> 
> I want to try to write not particular about the adventures “the reader” will have with the Doctor, but about a journey of two characters who are different but also similar. Who have been gone through much and have to learn from each other.  
> There is the Doctor, like we all know him. Post!Clara, grumpy Scotsman, fierce and impatient with the pudding brains. Travelling alone now. Not because he wants too, but because he is picky and he maybe got used to it, and he still misses Clara of course. I don’t think I have to characterise him much, as we all know him well.
> 
> And then there is “you” - the reader - female (sorry boys, I had to go with one gender I guess). Not fond of people either, hates her job as a barista, and wants to get away as far as possible. Restless, curious and sometimes reckless. Stubborn, and when the Doctor will invite you in the Tardis, you will be delighted, but it’s nothing you show, because that would make you vulnerable and you don’t trust people or aliens. Because there was disappointment. So when you accept, it’s more like a “well, when it must be”. 
> 
> This fic, might turn out as character study of two people - or maybe it turns out crap, I can’t tell yet. It will start out light, funny but there will be more serious topics. There will be banter and discussions.
> 
> Will this work out? How long will this fic be? Will I update regularly? I can’t say yes or no. It’s an experiment. Give it a try, my readers know I usually give everything I can.
> 
> Chapter length will vary between 1500 and 4000 I guess. I know me too well, I never can keep it short! Chapter one is written in Past Tense but all the other chapters will be in the Present Tense. I will usually tell from the You-point but I think I will put some Doctor POV’s there too. There is one already in Chapter 1. 
> 
>  
> 
> In case you are still interested in this little journey; keep reading, because it now begins!

**Reader POV**

You hate London. As sad as it sounds, and as devastating your opinion is, but you do it. You hate London. And the weather. You hate all weather, but particular the weather in London. Also you are not very fond of the people in London, but you are not very fond of any people, because people are insufferable.

As you are one of the people too, you accept that you are insufferable as much as all the others. Actually, you not hate London, you just hate their residents and what makes you be here.

Working, sleeping, eating. That’s all, that’s not enough for you, and you want more, but this town holds you in its grip. Like a monster, sometimes you think.

You could do better, you feel it, but you don’t know how, because you are scared by people and the hectic and you feel hamstrung when you see the stupidity around you. Then nothing makes sense to you. Not a word, not an action, just nothing. What is this life for, when you will forget about it, the moment you die?

“We are nothing but some hamsters, running in circles,” you once whisper to a work colleague, who couldn’t hear you over the sound of the coffee machine. “Most people just don’t know it.”

You want to go away, but where too? There is nothing, no ship that will take you away, no plane, no nothing. Nothing will bring you so far away, that you will be able to breathe again. Enslaved, you feel enslaved, you feel sad and most of the time you want to kill your customers. Only theoretical of course, because they are people and people are insufferable. When you think about it, it makes no sense, like so many things.

For a while you tried to make an effort, in living a good life and enjoying the social life, but it made also no sense to you. It all felt so hypocrite and so exhausting and so you gave up on it. On people and in general. Sometimes you catch yourself thinking about to jump from the London bridge, but you have not the guts to do so, and you still have hope. Faint, but it’s there. Hope for something else. The thing is, you can’t place your finger on this “ _else_ ”. And it makes you mad, makes you dizzy. It’s like running in circles.

You save money from your job as barista as much as you can, hoping one day, you’ll catch a train or a plane, that will bring you at least so far away how it gets in the boundaries of this planet.

‘ _One day,’_ is your motto. One day more, and then you realize it’s Les Miserable and that’s how you feel then. You don’t like Les Miserable, but you like the motto.

So you stay alive, day in and day out. You keep breathing and keep hoping. Sometimes you step onto your little balcony when it rains, till you are soaking wet and shiver because you get cold - one of the rare occasions you feel alive.

“One day.”

 

**Doctor POV**

It had been years now that he was travelling alone. It had been so long that he had forgotten how it was to travel with a companion. Not that he hadn’t looked out for one for a while, but there was none. None that was worth it, was capable and none that really wanted to travel with him. After a while it became too frustrating and so he stopped looking actively for one. Stopped asking himself, if the person he just met was maybe a good … replacement for… no, no, no. Not replacement, no one ever could replace her. No. A good companion, that’s what he was looking for, nothing else. Someone who was able to put up with him, the grumpy old Scotsman.

He had many adventures and travelled many galaxies, and it was quite fun. Sometimes he showed up in Victorian England to spent some time with the paternoster gang, but he never stayed longer than a few days. He was too restless and he needed to distract himself from boredom and the memories that haunted him at night.

They had a beautiful life together. Living in the Tardis had extended her life up to 150 years and they had the time of their lives. But all good things come to an end and so he had to let go of her. It broke one of his hearts and he spent two decades grieving in the Library of the Tardis, not caring what happened around him.

Then the old girl had almost crashed on earth because he hadn’t taken care about some important technical services. He had realized he had to go on - alone.

When another 50 years had passed, he had decided to look for a new companion but he was quite picky and he didn’t wanted to have a stupid pudding brain as companion, but someone who was a bit smarter. He had offered it to two people, but they told him a polite no. They didn’t say it out loud, but he guessed they feared his moody personality and it was an unstable life he offered.

While his time with Clara he had learned about the human race, their needs and what made the pudding brains happy. Even a lot fancied adventures, they needed most of all one thing; comfort and security. Stability and it was nothing he really could offer.

So he gave up on looking out. He thought about not looking for a human anymore - and fondly remembered C’rizz, but after 2000 years he got so used to his little pudding brains that he wanted to stick with one of them. It was like always having a cat, you just don’t buy a dog then - it was not a thought he should share with his new companion. In case he would ever find one.

And then one day, the Tardis started to make alarming sounds and started broadcasting from earth, 21st century. Three Axons seemed to be on earth and up to mischief.

“What? That’s not possible!” the Doctor glared at the screen. “They still should be trapped in the loop of time!” Nevertheless he needed to go after them, before they would might spread and do harm to the planet.

He landed the Tardis in a small side road of London and then stepped out to go looking for the creatures. It was in the middle of the night and as usual everything went out of hand. UNIT had detected the Axons too and had sent out their teams.

The Axons were no one to be kidding with. Deathly creatures, who could kill with a single touch and the Doctor was not very keen on losing a regeneration to them, but after he had lured the three into a dead end to get them isolated by UNIT, something went wrong. UNIT had trouble to locate the exact position of him and the Axons.

The only thing Kate could do was telling him “We’re working on it, just keep them on distance!”

“Honestly, Kate?” he called over the walkie talkie. “It’s not like I have much possibility here!”

“Two minutes!”

“I don’t have two minutes!” the Doctor yelled, the Axons only a few meters away. There was nowhere to go. Only walls and fences.

So this was it then, he thought, time to say goodbye to this regeneration. Maybe it was about time, maybe it was time for a change once more - even he got used to this old face finally.

Oh, he would definitely give Kate a shout with the next face, he only had to remember it. He would die in a dark corner of a street, surrounded by garbage bags and old cartons - at least the sun was going up. New day, new face.

When the Axons where only a few inches away, reaching out for him, he pressed himself into the wall behind him, closing his eyes to wait for the inevitable.

‘ _Clara,’_ he thought, knowing it would calm him down. ‘ _Clara. Clara. My Clara.’_

He trembled and stopped breathing, his hearts racing, pulsing his blood through his veins, that it almost hurt.

And then… a hand slipped into his, grabbing it and when he opened his eyes again, he looked into a pair of unfamiliar, but curious, sparkling eyes.

He gasped, mouth open and looked baffled down to watch his hand grabbed by the other, and then back again. For a split second he didn’t know what was happening, but then the young woman in front of him, tugged at him, his arm, giving his hand a light squeeze.

…

You had to work the early shift - the very early shift and of course you hated that too, but it gave you a bit of extra money, and that you didn’t minded and so you had swung yourself out of bed in an ungodly hour.

After you had arrived the cafe where you worked, you gave yourself a few more minutes before starting your shift, and enjoyed a coffee at the back entrance. Somehow a dodgy street, but the owner had gladly installed a wooden door, that separated the back entrance area from the rest of the street.

While you were nipping from your coffee, a sudden clatter reached your ears. Someone was yelling too, and you could only pick up the name “Kate”. First you thought about a couple having a little fight, nothing unusual, but the loud clatter worried you a bit and so you got curious and made your way over to the door, peering through a little hole.

What you saw, left you speechless. A man, maybe in his fifties pressed in fear against the wall and in front of him three strange looking people. He was wearing a black coat, with red lining, black trousers and a black jumper with holes in it. His hair curly and grey. The three strangers were wearing morph suits - of some sort - in silver and gold and to top the ridiculous appearance they were wearing strange masks that covered their eyes.

For a moment you considered it was carnival or Christopher Street Day or something, but those three didn’t look very friendly and the man cringing against the wall, didn’t look very happy.

There was imminent danger. In a reflex, you let drop the mug to the pavement, where it shattered. Then you ripped the door open and reach out to the man, slipping your hand into his, gripping it tight.

The way his head came up, his eyes flung open and piercing greenish eyes stared at you all startled and as if you were a ghost, told you, he had stopped believing in a rescue.

“Come on!” you tugged at his hand, to make him move. “Run!”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was chapter 1, I hope I could get your attention and you're curious for more now. When you have ideas or critic, don't hold back!  
> Thanks to misswinterseat on tumblr for the title suggestion! I am a lazy pal, and took it and only added "The new Companion" ;).
> 
> Also I mention several things here, I might should explain: C'rizz is a companion the 8th Doctor had, a non-human.  
> The Axons, I googled, were indeed an alien race the Doctor has encountered with the Master.


	2. 02_The Answer to your Question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You saved the Doctor, but he is not very appreciating. And then there is this blue box...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Get sucked in deeper into your next adventure...also more character study for the reader. Bit by bit you will learn, who you are.

 

You both bolt through the door, the three attackers following you, but you and the man whose hand you’re still holding, manages to close the door and lock it before they can reach you.

The next thing that happens is a loud buzzing helicopter in the sky, and a glaring light. Wind comes up and papers and bags fly around with noise and rustling. Both of you stare up into the sky, shielding your eyes with your free hand, startled and gaping at a blue ray of light that goes down, seemingly down over the three behind the door. Then there is a loud shriek, a zapping sound and then the lights go out and the helicopter is gone again.

You are shocked, unsure how to take the situation, so you turn toward the man, looking at him and then at your hands. There is warmth, and he holds your hand as tight as you hold his. You both share a stare with half open mouth, and then as if something has bitten you, you let go and step back a bit, “What was that?”

“UNIT,” he says and raises his other hand, holding a walkie talkie. “Do you have them Kate?”

“Yes, we do,” a female voice cracks over the microphone. “Everything is safe and sound again, Doctor. Thanks for the help, and sorry for the delay.”

“Very funny, Kate,” the man shakes his head half amused, half unnerved. “Till the next time.”

“Till the next time, Doctor.”

The man turns toward you, peering at you, but makes no indication of saying something, so it’s on you to find out more, “What did just happen?”

“Axons,” he says, as if everybody but you knows, what ‘ _Axons’_ are. With a grimace you try to communicate that you don’t know what it is, but as a return you only receive a similar grimace.

“Uhm, I probably missed ‘ _Axons’_ in school, so … enlighten me, maybe?”

The man makes an annoyed expression, “Axons. A race of semi-humanoid beings. What you saw was just a disguise, they actually look like a huge outer space parasites - a space parasite that feeds upon the planetary energy,” he rattles down the words. “I had several encounters with them, banned them into a loop of time, but some seemed to have escaped. Anyway, UNIT has it under control now. Job is done. So, thanks for the little help. Bye!”

The man walks swiftly to the door you just have pulled him through to save his life, ready to leave you behind, but that’s nothing you want to happen so fast, “Wait a minute!” you follow.

“Did you just say ‘ _space parasite’_?”

“Yes, I did,” he doesn’t makes the effort to look out for you, just walks down the street and you hate when people are just impolite.

For a second you stop in your tracks, make a gesture with your hands, as if to strangle someone, hoping he might would stop, but he doesn’t. His coat is only flapping around, revealing a bit of red lining. You think of letting him go, he obviously not wants to interact with you, and you made the experience it’s not worth it then, but something inside you is nagging you. To make an effort, at least once a year, and so you run after him.

“Does ‘ _space parasite’_ indicates… ‘ _aliens’_?”

He stops and you almost run against him, “Of course it does! Or did you miss ‘ _aliens’_ in school too?”

Is he trying to be funny? He doesn’t look like it. “We didn’t have ‘ _aliens’_ on schedule, actually.”

He leans back, disgusted, “On what kind of school did you went? Not having that on the schedule, how irresponsible!” he huffs and then keeps walking.

“It seems they teach a bit more at private schools, as in the state schools,” you babble away and earn an, “Obviously” from him.

‘ _What kind of conversation is this?’_ You consider he's out of his senses, on drugs or just a weirdo, and when you both come to a halt in front of a blue wooden telephone box that stands in the middle of the side street you think you have landed in some sort of reality show.

Just about to ask him what this is, he turns around to you, “Why are you following me?”

“Uhm, don’t know,” you start to muse. “Because you just told me about some Axons-aliens, and there was this helicopter and the blue light and… Kate, was it Kate? And UNIT? And... oh, I almost forgot, I saved your life, obviously.”

“Now what? Want a price for it? A pad on the shoulder?” the man pulls out some keys and pushes them into the door of the telephone cell. “Don’t be ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous?” you call out. “I hope you know, you sound impertinent.”

“Impertinent? How fancy,” he turns the key, and opens the door only a bit, to shove himself inside.

“What are you doing?” you ask suspiciously and to look inside, but he is rather good with blocking your view.

“I am about to step inside,” he says dryly.

“Inside what?” you lean forward.

He almost snaps, “A police box!” he taps the big letters over his head with his finger. “Don’t they teach reading anymore?”

You slowly purse your lips, your eyes becoming little slits, “What’s… reading?” you know he can see the mischief in your eyes. For a small moment you believe he is amused about you, but you can’t tell if it is a good sign or a bad one.

“Bye!” and then he slips inside and the door goes shut with a bang.

“What the…,” you step forward and take a look to the left of the box and to the right. The thing is not bigger than 5foot by 5foot. Your hands trail over the surface, it’s solid wood. Nice colour you think at first and then you try to come up with an explanation what is he doing in there.

You ponder on the spot and then coincidence helps you to decide, when the door almost soundlessly snaps open and comes ajar. Your left hand is still on the surface, and suddenly you feel a faint vibration, like a humming, and for whatever reason you look up, to the big letters.

“Alright,” you take a deep breath and step forward, not without closing your eyes, as you assume you will run against the man.

It comes differently. It’s like stepping into an emptiness. Like lifting a light object, you first assumed it would be heavy, and like you assumed you would enter a narrow, small room, you have the feeling to fall, when you enter something totally different.

A room, almost a small hall. A room that shouldn’t be there, not inside a small wooden, blue telephone police box!

A little gangway leads to the middle of it, with something you only can call a core. There are lights and the faint humming sound you heard earlier. Around the core there is a console, with control elements and there are two staircases that lead up to a gallery that goes round the room. You see blackboards and bookshelves, but you don’t see the man, you have encountered short before.

You keep standing by the door, giving the outside another look, then you swallow, grabbing the handrail by your side and slowly walk forward, “Ohhhkay… that’s a first.”

Like a cat, curious and scared at the same time, you walk up the gangway and begin to circle the console, not without looking around, to watch out for a danger or the man that should be here somewhere. You dare to touch the metal in front of you with two fingers, feeling the metal vibrate under your touch - it’s also warm, and not cold as expected.

When you have circled the core once, you turn yourself around, taking everything in. Is this place real?

“What are you doing in my Tardis?” a harsh voice arises suddenly, and the man you have met earlier storms up a staircase, with a furious expression on his face and even more furious eyebrows.

Stumbling back, you bump hard against the console, knowing it will leave a bruise. The only thing you can say are incoherent words.

“Who the hell are you?” he steps up to you and you quickly get yourself away, bringing the core between you and him.

“Who am I? We just met, remember?”

“No.”

You both circle around the console like a cat and a mouse.

“I saved your life?” you blurt out slightly outraged. “Just ten minutes ago.”

He seems to remember, but he will not appreciate it now, “What are you doing here? How did you come in?”

“The door was open, and,” you decide you can’t talk to him while you both hunt each other, so you make a step forward, hoping he won’t do you anything. To your surprise he steps a bit back, when you step forward.

“And what?”

“What would you do, seeing a man step inside a police box, and not coming out again? It’s a bit weird, isn’t it?” your voice pitches.

“I would leave him alone!” he snaps with his fingers and the door goes open, and he points toward it.

You know what he wants from you, but you have decided the moment you walked inside this “thing”, you are not going to leave without an answer. So instead of walking toward the door, you turn around quickly, and race up one of the staircases that lead to the gallery. He tries to grab you, but you are quicker, and in the end he keeps standing by the core and you stand on the gallery, slowly walking around.

You have like a dozen questions in your head, you would like to ask, but you are not sure if he would answer them, and you hope to deliver them in the right order would make him open up a bit, “What is this place?”

He is grumpy, but he snaps his fingers again, and the doors go shut once more, and you register it as a little win, “Who are you?”

Your fingers span around the handrail, ”Who are _you_?” You can play the game as well, you think.

“I asked first,” he points at you.

“And I asked second!” you give him a devilish grin, your eyes trailing up the core, noticing the many plates with strange looking writings. Circles. You sure it means something.

The man huffs, and then turns around to the console and presses some buttons. It’s a stalling technique. “I am the Doctor,” he whirls around again.

“Doctor?” you remember the woman on the walkie talkie call him like this. “Doctor…,” you form a question and notice he starts to smile slightly, and when you add, “Like... Doctor Kildare or what?” his impression fades to disappointment.

“Just Doctor,” he says, almost pouting. “So, who are you?”

You tell him your name, nothing more, no surname, and most of all not your real name but your nickname, as you can’t stand your real name.

“Just that?” he asks.

“Just that,” you hold up your hands. “Not wore than ‘Doctor’. Well, if you feel better, you can add a… uhm ‘Miller’ or ‘Smith’, if you like,” you wait for him to say something, but while he seems to consider what to do with you, your curiosity takes over, “What is this place?”

“It’s called Tardis.”

“Mh,” you slowly come down the stairs on the other side, and quickly walk toward the exit, opening the door, spying outside. You are still in the alley, it’s still a wooden police box on the outside. “I don’t want to sound surprisingly shocked, but, ” you try to come up with something that doesn’t sounds too crazy.

“Say it,” he then says. “Everybody does.”

You clearly note the smug expression on his face, and you can sense what he wants to hear from you, what everybody says, but you are not everybody, and so you give him a grin, coming back to the console. “It’s … round on the inside.”

It’s not what everybody says, and you like the bewildered expression on his face, “It's what?”

“Yeah, it is! Didn’t you notice? It’s a box on the outside,” you form a square with your hands, “you know all corners and edges. But in the inside it is,” you whirl your hands hectically around, forming a ball and he follows the movement with your hands, till he seems to get seasick, “round. It’s pretty cool, like a… like a lighthouse, but a bit of a waste of space, hm? No?”

The Doctor looks at you as you would be crazy, and then looks around, as if he never ever has noticed that the room has no corners, and then he seems not sure if he should be impressed or worried.

“Okay, it’s also bigger on the inside - I guess, that’s what everybody says, right?" When he wants to say something, you enthusiastically go on, "Actually, my grandmother - god bless her soul - had a house like this.”

“Your grandmother had a Tardis?”

“No, my grandmother had a house,” you correct, shaking your head. “It was pretty tiny from the outside, like from a fairytale or something, bit quaint, but when you went in, gosh so much stuff! I don’t know how she did it, but,” you splatter with your lips, “definitely bigger on the inside. Bit like here. Not so fancy of course. This is way cooler! The lightning is. And it is really huge, when we consider it's only a police box. Maybe it's just the trick of lighting. Am I right?”

“Are you bananas, by any chance?”

“No, I don’t like bananas,” you eye some of the buttons on the console. “What happens when I press this button here?”

Like a wild animal he is at your side in an instant and pads your hand away, “Don’t think of touching anything! This could lead to imminent danger!”

“Do you live here?” you stay where you are, you decided not to be afraid of him. He doesn’t look like a threat to you anymore. All lanky, and all eyebrows.

“Yes,” he eyes you, and he seems as if he has decided, that you can stay for a bit and ask questions. “The Tardis is my home.”

Swaying nervously on the spot you brush your palm over the warm metal again, eyeing the core and the console again - this time more critical, “Looks like a ship to me.” You don’t have the guts to keep your eyes fixed on him, and start again to circle around the console - still the curious cat you are.

“Ship? It’s a police box, isn’t it?” you clearly can hear the mischief in his tone and see it in his eyes too.

“Yeah,” you chuckle, “which is round on the inside.”

You both share an expression of ‘ _don’t get too clever here.’_

“Are you… what I think you are?”

“What do you think I am?”

Your look travels down his appearance and back, “You are not a Scotsman. Like this is no telephone box.”

“What is it then?” he asks with a pursing of his lips, his voice low.

You rub your nose, unsure if you should speak out what is on your mind, “I think I have seen enough movies, to say that this is alien technology. Also Axons, UNIT, Bigger on the inside… either you are just someone who stole this thing, or you are the alien who owns it.”

A flicker of an appreciating smile goes over his face, “Maybe I am a bit of both.”

“Is there more than this room?” you suddenly change the topic, because you have spot the door, that is not the exit.

“Maybe there is,” he walks between you and the sight you have at the door.

“There must be, I don’t see a bed here. I am sure you rest,” you try it with logic.

“What if I don’t?”

“You probably take cat naps then,” you shrug. “Anyway, there is a door, it will lead somewhere. This is the bridge of your ship, I guess. And your ….,” again you wave with your hands into the direction of the core, “your, your warp drive.”

“My warp drive?” he asks peeved.

“Never seen Star Trek?”

“No, I am usually very busy."

“Ah, you are missing something here!” you think about what to ask next. “Are there more? More of you?”

“I am travelling alone,” he states, not without you noticing that his eyes fall down to the floor for a moment. Have you touched a sensitive topic? You are almost sure of that.

“How boring,” you whisper more to yourself, but he has heard it, also only comments it with a smile that doesn’t reach his eyes. “Tardis,” you say again. “Ta...rdisss, odd name. I knew once a man who named his vacuum cleaner Mika - I found that odd too.”

“This is not-” he raises his voice again, offended.

“-I know!” you lower your head, it was not your intention to anger him. “It’s a spaceship.”

“Time and Relative Dimension in Space,” he puts emphasis in every word. “It’s a time machine as well. And it’s mine.”

You don’t know how to take this information, it quite steels a bit of your breath, “Time machine,” it’s more a croak. Your hand holds tight at the console, somehow you are afraid you will lose balance over all this new perspective. For a bit you look at the core, hoping your brain would soon allow you to say something, “I saw a movie once,” you begin, and you wonder why you sound so emotional, overwhelmed almost, “about a time machine. Classic,” you chuckle nervously, looking at the Doctor. “Looked like a sleigh. Couldn’t move actually, so it was not a ship, just-”

“-I know the movie,” he interrupts you gently.

You are both surprised that he knows what you are talking about, because most people don’t know what you are talking about. Most people don’t even know that you _can_ talk, because you usually don’t try much to do conversation.

“So you travel with your Tardis in time and…,” you see the possibilities, you see the chances and it frightens you as much as it excites you.

“Time and space, yes.”

“Alone? Or what?” you ask without bad intentions.

The Doctor doesn’t answer you immediately, and you guess something is up with the topic, “Not always, but right now I do.”

You frown, “Why?”

“Why what?”

“Why would one travel alone, in such a big ship. I am sure there is plenty of space behind this door,” you sound desperate you think, and you shake yourself out of this state, and clasp your hands together. The Doctor jumps over the noise. “Well, on the other side, people can be really noisy and annoying and you guys probably never could decide on a planet or a space nebula you wanted to visit. Travelling alone is not that bad.”

You both can’t believe the words completely you said, but he nods, as if there is at least a bit of truth in it, “Sort of.”

Biting your lip, you watch him fiddle with some gadget. He does as if it is damaged, but you believe it is perfectly fine. The fierceness that had inherited him earlier is now gone and he looks calm, distant and vulnerable.

You give the sight a short, sad smirk.“You are busy,” you say, and wait for his reaction.

He shakes the gadget by his ear, and for a split second you can see his eyes glance at you, “Yes, I am.”

You’re well aware, that he hasn’t told you to leave, hasn’t snapped with his fingers to open the door. As keen he was to get away from you earlier, he now seems not to mind your stay. Surely it’s only a mood, and can change any time. The wrong word, the wrong movement and he would kick you out.

“It seems, I am late, for my shift,” you ruffle your own hair. “Coffee barista, horrible. But they pay good,” you make your way toward the gangway, and wait for something. Something he would say, or something that could happen out of nowhere. It will not. Nothing ever happens, just because you want it and when not on time. So it is on you, to take matter in your hands. Almost at the door, you tell yourself it’s time to give a damn, and to risk a bit.

“Anyway!” you say loud and turn on your heels tumbling a bit back, staring at him. “Yes!”

The Doctor looks up and places the gadget finally away, “Yes?”

“Yeah,” you nod with a smile, all nervous and a bit shaky. “Yes."

"Yes - what?" his eyebrows become a single line.

"The answer to your question.”

Pursing his lips for a moment, he tries to remember if he might has asked you a question earlier, “I haven’t asked a question,” he leans against the console with his back, his coat falls a bit to the side, revealing the red lining.

His tone is serious and stern and you feel your courage drop, it makes you almost turn around to hurry away, and then you give yourself a kick and turn back, “Well, in case you do ask a question it’s; … yes,” you can’t believe you are doing this. “Without hesitation and regret.” You bit your lips with your teeth, smiling, shrug on last time, and then place your hand onto the door handle.

He is good in veiling his thoughts and emotions, with his stern expression. Even his eyebrows seem to obey him once in a while. More you can’t do, you offered yourself, even you are expecting nothing ever will come off it.

“Goodbye Doctor,” one last time you glance around the Tardis, and you almost say out the cheeky comment you have in mind, but you open your mouth only to close it again. Briefly you watch over the Doctor. Does he look disappointed?

Then you step outside, and only seconds after, the blue box vanishes behind you into thin air with a whooshing and wheezing sound you never has heard before. Shoving your hands into your pockets you smirk, imagining all the possibilities of such a ship, only to be interrupted by your boss, “Ey, what are you looking at? You are already late half an hour! Come on!”

“Sorry! I was just…,” you turn once more around. There is no indication that the Tardis ever has stood there.

“What?”

“Nothing, I forgot about time, I am sorry,” you hurry back into the cafe, not without threatened it better not happen a second time.

Yes, you have your reason to leave. The best of all, because nothing here is worth it. No regret, and no hesitation.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of explanation again:  
> The movie I mention is "The Time Machine" from 1960 with Rod Taylor. Some might have seen the remake from 2002, please don't miss out the original, it's way better!  
> The person who has called its vacuum cleaner Mika, was actually me...(what can I say). 
> 
> Thanks for the read, and the comments you left till now! Keep commenting! Thanks!


	3. 03_The Question to your Answer

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Will the Doctor return?

Three weeks go by and nothing happens. On two days it rains, on four it’s foggy and the rest of the time the sun is shining a bit. For a week you worked the very early shift, where you had at least seven annoying customers who complained about missing soya milk -  _because Starbucks is around the corner when you want some_ \- , why the shop had no more the vanilla latte on the card -  _because it was nasty_ \- or why you didn’t smile more -  _because you are not a clown_ .

The other week you worked the ten to six shift and tried to work in a new colleague, what worked out good, except that the coffee machine broke down on a Tuesday and it was of course while you were doing an Espresso for a customer, so it looked like it was your fault, but it wasn’t because the thing always had its flaws and you had told your boss three times already that something was wrong with it. Hell, what a boss when he would at least once listen to someone. In moments like this you wanted to break down. Or take a glass to throw it against the next wall, only to leave and yell, you’ll give up this damn job. As it doesn’t bring you nowhere you rein in your anger and passion, and count to ten in silence while your boss is asking you what you have done wrong.

‘ _Everything,’_ you think, and you don’t mean the machine. “Nothing!”

Two weeks, and not one day goes by without you looking into that alley behind the shop for the blue wooden box. Sometimes, mostly when you come from home or leave again, you find yourself circling the little spot where it had stood, as if there is still a connection to it.

In the middle of work, when it is low business, you find yourself by the counter, your back turned to the room, and your eyes are closed, listening. Listening hard, if you can hear it, this sound, this wheezing, but there is nothing and when the third week starts, you know the Doctor will not come back. Not anytime soon. It’s a time machine, and it’s a big universe, you guess, surely he is busy saving some worlds or having some little adventures in 50 Million AD.

So you stop thinking about it, you stop circling the spot and you stop listening.

In the night, when you lay in bed, staring at the ceiling you scold yourself again and again, while tossing about in your bed, that you had been a fool for having hope, for seriously believing he would choose you as a companion.

And when week number four starts, with the three to ten shift, you have forgotten.

The machine works again, and your colleague knows now everything he needs to know and aside you don’t talk much, you work fine aside from each other. When it is six o’clock, he goes for a cigarette and you clean some mugs, when you hear someone approach the counter.

“Just a moment, please,” you quickly dry the mug. “You can tell me what you want already, if you know.”

“Yes?”

“Yes, just tell me,” you say and place the last mug onto the shelf, turning around, while you clean your hands with a towel.

“I mean,” the familiar voice begins, “if your answer is still yes?”

The towel falls down to the ground, when you face the Doctor, gaping and with wide open eyes. Your mouth opens up wide, only to suck in some air, while your blood rushes through your ears loud and your heart beats hard against your chest, while your legs can’t move anymore - that’s how shock feels. You swallow with dry lips.

“Are you going to answer, or will you only stare at me all day?” he asks impatient, one of his eyebrows attacking.

He is still wearing the same clothes, and for a moment it makes you wonder, then you snap out of your trance state.

“To what question?” you ask and see the right eyebrow join the left.

You waited three weeks, and you dare such thing? Maybe you have gone bananas, you are happy he is back, and also angry because he let you wait. All this feelings, they were always your problem. So much to process, so much at once. Like twenty layers of film playing at once. You never have dared to ask someone else, if they feel the same on some days, or if you are the only one. You never dared, because it would mean, to hear them say, ‘ _Something is wrong you!’_

It only would hurt you, make you retreat more and so you have given into your own fright.

 

“The question to your answer,” it’s a strict answer, he will not allow you to push the subject further and you decide not to push your luck and make another cheeky comment. You only nod slightly to make clear you understand.

Your hands come around your waist and you feel your fingers loosen the knot of your apron on your back. The Doctor watches you do it, an almost unseen smirk on his face, before his eyes connect again with yours. You smirk, the apron falls down to the floor.

“It will be not like this,” he motions with his face into the room. He warns you, he reminds you, tells you, it’s a big step, and there is maybe no return.

“I hope so.”

For half a minute he scrutinizes you with his owlish look, and it makes you ask what he has done the last three weeks, when he still needs time to think about an offer and then you realize he is a time traveller and maybe he has seen you last five minutes ago. Maybe it’s a test?

“So your answer is still yes?”

“Without hesitation and regret, yes,” you repeat and lean slightly forward, your hands on the counter.

“At least one of us has said yes already.”

It makes you frown and it makes your confidence go away, because you don’t understand it. Is he here to tell you a no? That he won’t take you? The muscles in your upper chest suddenly tense, when fear of rejection crawls up your back. You watch his one hand on the counter, motionless, and you don’t know much about the Doctor yet.

A space alien, with a Scottish accent (you definitely have to ask him about that) and an outfit of a rundown magician, who has eyebrows that can probably kill and an attitude of grumpiness mixed with impatience. A man with many facets, you think, with many surprises, and not much will be sure with this man, but you believe to know, that he is no man, who comes by extra to tell you, that he will not take you. No, this man doesn’t care that much!

You give yourself away with the twitch of your mouth, before you bite the inner of your cheeks, “So it’s the coffee you are here for then. Let me take a wild guess,” you turn around and take one of the plastic mugs, place it in front of him and you with a soft thud, and fill it with coffee from the pot, ”Coffee black, two sugars, am I right?” you hold up two sugar cubes in your open palm.

A soft smile plays around his lips, then he reaches for the glass with the sugar and places more cubes into your palm. With each you feel your mimic slip. “Make it seven and…”

You drop each cube into the liquid, and alone the thought of tasting it makes your stomach revolt a bit, “And?”

“And to go!” his head motions to the door.

You place a lid onto the cup and shove it over. For a moment you think about to charge him for it, and as if he can ready your mind; “Don’t even think about it, I don’t carry money with me.” His long fingers embrace the paper cup and take it from the surface of the counter with one swift motion, only to strode to the exit, without looking behind him.

You watch the spot where the cup has stood, where the heat of the liquid has left a dwindling mark on the cold counter. “Mike!” you call out to your colleague, who is still taking a break.

“Yeah?”

“I’m sorry to tell you, but I got to go!” the Doctor stands by the door, holds it open for a moment, before he moves on. “I think I have a planet to save or… something!” you watch the Doctor leave the café, and you see the Tardis in the streets, where he is heading to.

“Yeah,… alright!” you hear Mike’s answer, he thinks you are joking and you laugh about it and then run around the counter toward the exit. You stop by the door for a moment, you don’t look back, you only want to make this step with all your senses.

Coming back is not an option. Then you step outside, the Doctor already gone, the Tardis door open and you run for it, but then doubt hits you. He hasn’t actually said, that you can come with him.

‘ _Stop it!’_ you demand yourself and when you look up again, you find the Doctor peeking his head out of the door, looking at you with a frown.

“What is it? I don’t have all day! Come on!”

Your tongue peeks out between your teeth, and you follow him inside, “I thought it’s a time machine?”

“It is!” The door closes behind you, and the Doctor walks around the console pressing some buttons, “It doesn’t mean we waste it, okay? So, where do you wanna go?”

Slowly you walk up to the console, touching the edges again, feeling the humming and the warmth of the machine, your eyes go up to the core, “How about… anywhere?”

The Doctor smirks, “Good answer,” and pulls down the lever with a certain verve you one day will realize how you love it when he is doing it.

The machine starts wheezing and groaning and the tubes around the core start to move, there is a little jolt and you grab for the console so you not lose balance. You laugh up and the Doctor shares a smile with you.

That’s how you learn, that adventure always begins with one thing;

The sound of the Tardis.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter 4 and 5 are already written in a rough draft and should follow soon. Thanks for reading and commenting!


	4. 04_First Adventures

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> As it seems you are now the new Companion. Time for a first adventure. It will not turn out the way you thought.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I have to admit I wasn't sure if I should post this thing the way it is, but I have no inspiration to extend it and I don't want to write too much and interfere with your imagination. For reason I sometimes don't write down all the details of seeing and feeling, because I think it should be up to the reader, giving one the chance to set oneself into the situation and produce own feelings. Part of this story work a bit like a play, you have to interpret (and yes, sometimes I am just a lazy af ;) ). On the other side I try to give you a left and right border in which you can move as the main character of this story.  
> Am I talking nonsense? Do you get me? Well, in case you still read this, you probably do.

A deep sonorous sound like the stroke of a bell, echos through the console room and in anticipation you look up to the core, that slowly stops rotating and then you look at the Doctor, who pushes the lever up - into the parking position you will call it later. 

“Are we there?” you don’t even know where there is, and you mainly don’t care, because the only thing you want is to have an adventure. Five minutes ago, you were serving coffee and now… god knows what now was. 

“Yes, we are,” the Doctor snaps with his fingers and the door goes open. A soft breeze hits you. “Your first alien planet. Want to find out more?” There is a certain tease in his voice. 

“Nothing more there is I wanna do!” you make two steps toward the door, only to stop and look at him. In searching for approval maybe or in assurance, you can’t tell. 

“It’s all yours,” he points out to the door. “Take the lead, I’ll follow.”

It’s nothing you let one tell you twice, and with that you jog over to the open door and pace outside the Tardis. 

Only to step into emptiness. Ever stepped into an elevator, finding yourself stepping into a hole, because there was no cabin? (As you read this, obviously not.) And _you_ haven’t too, because if, you might would have been able to catch a grip at the Tardis doorstep. So you only fall - down. 

“Doctaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

It’s cold, and the only thing you see first is the Tardis, getting smaller and smaller while you fall deeper and deeper. You are in the sky, and underneath you is the ground, coming closer and closer. You’re whirling around with your hands and arms, as if you hope you could hold onto something but air. 

That was not the plan, that was not how you thought you would die, not on your first adventure. 

Your heart beats hard and fast, and your breath is going rigid. There is a rushing sound in your ears, from the massive speed you have falling through the sky, toward earth. How long do you have? A minute maybe - better make your peace now. 

And when you see the ground come closer, you only hope it will not hurt - well the impact will blow out the life out of you in an instant. It shouldn’t hurt then. Closing your eyes, you bring your arms over your chest and face, and hope for the best. 

A familiar sound makes you open your eyes again. The Tardis appears under you, open doors, and you feel the gravity change, the moment you pass through the door into the inside. You feel your body turn, feel your feet touch the ground and instead of falling, you are running now - the forcefield of the ship can’t get rid of all the physical energy your body inherits because of the fall, but it’s enough to make you only crush into one of the bookshelves with a loud banging sound. Books and boards collapsing under your impact, and covering you. You all groaning. 

“Ahhhh!” you don’t know if you have screamed all the time or only now, and you only can stop, when a book hits your face hard. 

You tremble and if you haven’t died yet, you might will because your heart can’t settle back to normal. Gasping for air and words, your hands reel around you. You are not sure if you’re still falling or if you might have hit the ground and now this the afterlife or an aftershock, and you only stop when someone grips your hand hard, “It’s okay, I got you! You are safe!” 

“Oh god! What the hell was that?” you can’t move, snapping for air and don’t care that you are covered in books. 

When the Doctor thinks, you are alright again, he lets go of you and steps back to the console, “I have to admit, this never happened before. I thought we had landed, but we hadn’t, we were still 10000 feet over the ground.”

“10000 feet?” you pant with a high pitched voice. 

“Yap, sorry,” you can’t see it, but you know the Doctor watches you, probably making a gesture of a toddler that just had spilled ink over the new sofa.

Your heart slowly finds a healthy rhythm again, “Just one question, Doctor!” you finally take the book on your face away, glaring over to him. “Do you actually happen to know how to fly this thing?”

He waves you over, urges you to stand up, “Oh, come on! Little miscalculation maybe, can happen! I caught you, didn’t I? So now come on, we landed - this time for real.”

You pick yourself up from the ground, and follow him on shaky legs. He stands by the door, and the expression he gives you, is a daring. If you are willing to go once again out first. You are no one who declines a dare, and so you tense your back muscles till you can feel a bone pop back into order, and then you pull the door open and pace outside. This time you feel proper ground under your feet, also you have to admit, you expected otherwise. 

“So, where are we?” you ask the Doctor when he joins you.

“I don’t know.”

“What do you mean you don’t know?”

“Surprise Planet! I thought your first planet should be a surprise.”

“Is this a tradition or something?”

“No, it’s not. Also I think, I make it one.”

“Do you think it is good, not knowing where we are? What awaits us? Danger? Death?” you move your head from left to right in a staccato rhythm. 

“Fun?” he looks at you as if you are about to spoil a party. “I thought you wanted to have adventures? Or do you want to go back home? Serving coffee?”

“Sorry, that I have a little trust issue here, I just fell out of your ship, _after_ it was presumably parked!”

“Do you want to hold this against me, for the next 500 years or something,” he wavers with his hands between you and him. “Because that would be annoying.”

You huff, “Believe me, if I could, I would!” you stomp past him, only to turn around once more. “As I am only getting 70 or 80, I make it ten years, only for you. How about that?”

His stern expression turns into a smug smile, “That’s a deal.” 

Making a smacking sound you can’t hold back a smile, and point with your hand toward a near forest, except the forest seems to be oversized mushrooms in yellow and blue. Over the banter with the Doctor you have forgotten to take a look, where you have actually landed. Your first alien planet. 

_‘The mushroom planet’,_ you think, with a smile. There is a coast, not far away where the Tardis is parked, the water shimmers in dark purple, the sand is black. The air tastes somehow bitter and you can see a sun in the sky and a moon, that seems to be four times larger as the sun. There is no wind, and you can’t make out any birds or wildlife. It’s disturbingly silent, and even if you listen closely you can’t hear the sea. 

“It doesn’t look as if someone lives here,” you take a stick from the ground and poke softly against the mushroom trunk. The surface begins to move as if water has trickled onto it. “Did you see that?” you do it again.

“Better don’t do this,” the Doctor pulls out something of his pockets, you haven’t seen yet. “Sonic Screwdriver,” he sees your quizzical look. “Can scan almost everything,” he holds it out to the trunk. “Very active lifeform. Wouldn’t poke it again, maybe it gets angry.”

“Oh,” you let the stick fall to the ground, only to notice it wasn’t a stick, but something else, that now crawls away as if it would be a snake. It makes you jump back, bumping against the Doctor. “Sorry. Just made my first alien contact.”

He scans after the creature, “Not infectious. Don’t worry.”

“Believe me,” you eye the forest you are in, “I stopped worrying when I fell out of the sky.” The Doctor can’t hear you, as he has wandered deeper into the forest and you do your best to catch up with him. Better not stay behind. 

You both wander around for maybe twenty minutes and the Doctor scans something here and there, while you take in your environment. You still haven’t caught sight of birds or other animals as the “stick” you had in hand earlier. It’s like the nature is hiding from you both. You can’t exactly blame them. The ground under your feet is fine sand, some rocks here and there. Parts of the mushrooms, that seemed to have fallen down, like withered leaves. 

“I don’t want to sound disappointed, but it seems nothing is going on here,” you take one of the mushroom part up and it falls apart into sand and dust. 

“You don’t sound disappointed,” the Doctor turns around to you and you smile because he says it. “You sound pesky.” 

Your smile drops. “Sure, pesky. Sorry, I expected some alien lifeforms or at least some running,” you fire back in your most sarcastic tone.

“There are life forms all around you,” the Doctor points out to one of the trees.

“Yeah, I know, I just thought about something with more hands and feet,” you kneel down, and shove your hand into the ground, noticing it is warm. You always had a weakness for touching things. Experience it through this way. Making your hands dirty, rubbing the earth between your palms. “It’s warm,” you remark as the Doctor cocks an eyebrow at you and you know it’s a silent question. “Actually, it’s getting warmer!”

The Doctor kneels down too, placing his hand onto the ground, “Yes.”

“Why do I think, this ‘yes’ means bad news?” In the distance there is a roar to hear and you both are up on your feet again, staring at each other. “Doctor? What was that?”

The roaring comes closer and soon you see trees snap to the side, while something makes its way toward you.

“There is a chance, you’ll get your running.”

“Oh, fu-”

“Language!”

It’s huge, it’s alien and it’s nothing you have expected. It’s a roaring monstrosity that stops in front of you and you find yourself aside the Doctor and each of you is grabbing the arm of the other. 

“Doctor? Any chance you know what it wants?” in your head you calculate how fast you have to run to be the first back in the Tardis. The Doctor is maybe older, but has the larger stride. 

“I think,” he makes a little step back and you follow his idea, “it thinks we are not welcome here.”

“Well, maybe, we should retreat then? I have seen enough, no need to make the extra sightseeing tour,” you shot him a grin. 

“Sure? I really thought you would fancy it,” he makes another step back, only to notice the thing in front of you follows you.

“Next time, maybe, right now I am not very keen to get killed by a monster made of stone,” you want to make another step back, but the Doctor tighten his grip and makes you stop.

“Stone?”

You are puzzled, “Yes, they are obviously out of rocks!” You need to yell now as the rock-monster is roaring once more.

“What do you mean rocks?” the Doctor yells back at you.

“What do you mean, what do I mean?” you free your arm and make another step back. “They are made of stone, for god sake!”

For a moment you catch the Doctor’s look, as if he thinks you went insane, “No, they are not, they are liquid!”

“Liquid? Do you need specs or something!” you turn your head to him. “That’s definitely… oh my god, they are liquid!”

“Huh?”

“I swear they were out of rocks, just a second ago!”

The Doctor pulls out his sonic and scans the creature, “Oh, no, that’s worse!”

“What does that mean?”

“Telepathy, shape shifting entity. Very bad.”

“Except of _‘very bad’_ , I didn’t understand anything!”

“They can change appearance, reading your mind, feeding on your worst nightmares,” he babbles almost too fast for you.

Slowly it dawns on you, “Are you saying, these aliens, change appearance, over what I am thinking?”

The Doctor hesitates, “Yes.”

You close your eyes, realizing it isn’t such a good idea, and only stare to the ground, “No! No, no, no, damn, no! God!”

“What do you see?”

You grab your head and hit it to chase the thoughts away, “I can’t tell you!”

“Why not? What are you seeing?” the Doctor steps closer to you, and makes you face him.

“Because I have seen too much alien movies, with frightful creatures, as to imagine only some puppies!” you yell at him, then you close your eyes again, trying to imagine exactly this. “Puppies. Puppies. These are puppies.”

The creator roars, and you both stumble back. You try not to look, as you know what you will see. Also you can’t fight the inner urge to take a peek, as you want to know if the Doctor is right. A short glance is enough, - you weren’t able to project puppies onto the thing - he is right and you know the picture will probably haunt you in your next dream. 

“Okay, I admit, it wasn’t the best idea, to come here,” the Doctor pulls hard at your arm and drags you away. “Let’s go!”

You both run as fast as you can out of the forest. Neither of you is sure if something is following you, the visions you just have experienced, where just too awful. And even your chest hurts, and your body tells you to stop, you don’t and run till you reach the Tardis door, that opens up for a few feet away. You both lunge into it, and while you collapse on the staircase, the Doctor yanks down the lever and sets a new course. With wheezing and buzzing the Tardis signals her start and only then you feel safe. 

“You are alright?”

It’s the first time since the forest you dare to look somewhere else as to the ground, “Yes.” Your hand clutches around your shirt, there were your heart beats underneath. The heavy drumming soothes you, tells you, you are still alive. 

The Doctor kneels in front of you, “You look scared,” and you are, and even the Doctor seems to ponder over the fresh experience. He doesn’t touch you, but it is do you as if he thinks if he should reach out to you. 

“I am frighten to the bone,” you recall what you saw, and try to push it into the world of imagination and horror movies. “Nasty creature.”

“Yes,” the Doctor says silently, hesitates for another second and th raises back to his feet, checking the monitors for information. “I brought the Tardis into the Vortex. We stay here a bit. And then we find another planet.”

You watch him stand by the console, one hand on the metal, the other around the screwdriver he is still holding. For a second it seems he is shaken as you on the inside, but when he catches your glances, he shakes himself out of a thought, “It’s time you find your room.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this one. I broke the fourth wall a bit ;).  
> In the next chapter you will explore the Tardis and your room and will find more about your being on the Tardis, about the Tardis and the Doctor. Stay tuned!


	5. 05_The Tardis

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You have to find your room in the Tardis, and while you make little explorings, you not only find your room, but also meet someone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay here. I was busy writing another story, as it is finished now I will concentrate now on this again. Hope you still with me here.

“You should go now, find your room,” the Doctor takes his coat off and starts to dust it off with his hand.

“Find it? Can’t you come and show me?” you still feel shaken from the experience you had with the telepathic aliens and it surprises you how fast the Doctor seems to have let it behind him. He probably has more experience and has seen worst. You are not sure if this should give you a thrill or make you rethink your decision to travel with him.

The Doctor turns toward you with a twitch of his eyebrows, “When I remember correctly you were very eager to find out what is behind this door, so… go find your room,” he puts the coat back on. “Aside it’s tradition. The companions always have to find the room on their own.”

“Alright,” you shrug nonchalantly with your shoulder. You consider what to say. It’s probably easy, but on the other hand, the way he tells you it, it gives you the feeling you maybe will go lost behind that door. “Will you come looking for me, when I will not be back in… let’s say three days or so?”

He chuckles, “Go find your room!” For an unknown reason, you would be actually reassured, when he would at least say yes, even it is only a joke.

‘ _What a fuss,’_ you think and leave him and the console room.

Behind the door there is a long corridor and from time to time a corridor goes to the left or to the right. You stop by a door, and peek into it, to find a huge kitchen in the front and some trees in the back. The trees carry bananas and cherries and something you can’t identify. You are half inside, when

“I told you to get to your room!” it’s the Doctor’s voice over the intercom.

Startled you jump around and bang your arm against the door frame, “Jesus! Are you spying on me?”

“Maybe I do,” he says, and you instantly look around for cameras or similar. There are none, at least none you can identify as some.

“That’s not very nice,” you turn around yourself. “Spying on people is … illegal.”

“Where?” you can hear the amusement in his voice.

“Somewhere it is, I am sure! I am sure there is an alien planet that has voted against spying out people,” you close the door again and keep walking. The Doctor doesn't answer and you guess he has left you alone or is watching you in silence, and hope for the first.

You cross a few doors, but they are either locked or seem to be rooms of others. It’s strange. Bedrooms, all different styles, but the moment you open the door, you feel it’s not your place to be, like an aura and so you close the doors again and move on.

After a while you come into a corridor you think you have seen before, but you can’t be sure, because when you turn around to look behind you, and then back forward, there is suddenly a junction that wasn’t there before.

“Wait a minute!” you peer around the corner, “That’s impossible!”

Though it is not uninteresting what the new junction reveals. With a wide smile you walk forward, standing in front of a large swimming pool. There is no end to it and the only thing you can think is, how the temperature of the water might is.

Kneeling down, you dip your hand into the water to feel the perfect tempered liquid around your fingers. You have forgotten about your room, and try to fight down the idea of taking a quick swim.

Then something grabs you at your shoulders, and pulls you back on your feet, “I told you, to find your room! And what are _you_ doing? You wander off!”

“Doctor!” you haven’t heard him approach you. “What are you? A shape shifter? Sneaking up on people?”

His hands land on his hips, and he glares at you in impatience.

“I got distracted! I haven’t had a swim in a year! Aside, I mean look at it!” you hold out both your hands into the distance. “You can’t see the end of it!”

“You’re telling me, your grandmother had no swimming pool in her bigger on the inside house?”

Rolling your eyes, you follow him back to the corridor, “It was a cricket field actually, right in the basement, aside the polo field.”

He turns around to you and gives you a certain look between amusement and scrutinizing.

“Yes, yes, yes, I am going to look for my room,” you almost salute him, but something tells you not too, and so you only nod and hurry down the corridor around the next corner. “Mother hen.”

After another five minutes you are about to give up, also you believe, you are going round in circles and something is playing with you. At least you are spared from the doctor till now.

“What am I supposed to do?” you ask out loud, hoping the Doctor hears you over the intercom. It stays silent. “Sacrifice a cow or a... chicken? Do a dance? Oh no! I know!” you drum with your fingers on your chest and then spread your arms wide from you, facing a wall, “Open, sesame!” Your own childishness makes you chuckle.

Nothing.

“I don’t have a chicken with me, so,” you blow some air and turn around, to face a door. You’re so startled, that you step back, banging against the wall. You really should stop running against the interior, you think, it’s not good for you and not good for the Tardis. Also, the door was definitely not there before.

“Damn me!” aside of the door is a frame, and when you look at it, it begins to flare to life. The outline of a hand appears and blinks, plus the words ‘ _scan necessary’_.

You try the door first, but it’s locked. It seems you need to get scanned before entering. Hesitating you raise your hand and place it onto the black glass. For a second everything is fine, and then it feels like something bites you and you pull back, “Autsch!”

Rubbing your hand, you see following words, ‘ _Scan incomplete. Scan necessary.’_

“It hurts!” there you wonder who you scold.

Instead of an answer, you have the feeling the blinking quickens and now becomes impatient with you. Giving in, you press your hand hard against the black frame, and when you have the feeling it bites again, you only press harder and press your eyes shut. Mimicking pain on your face.

“Scan complete,” a robotic voice sounds and the door slides open.

When you enter, the door behind you goes shut, and you are standing in the dark, “Uhm… light?”

A faint humming starts, and the lights in the room slowly lights up, till it almost is too bright for you. Shielding your eyes, you grasp the concept of light control quick, “That’s too bright! Stop!” it stops. “Ahm… reduce 50 percent?”

Indeed, what ever controls the light obeys your order and the room now has perfect lightning. “Thanks,” you say and wonder why, probably because people in movies always say thanks to their computers.

The room is empty. Nothing in it. You turn around and find another black display aside the door, instinctively you tip with one of your fingers against it. It comes to life.

“ _Calculating room interior…Calculating complete.”_

“What?” when you turn around again, the room is full. Bed. Carpet. Table. Sideboard. Cupboard. Everything you need. It’s a familiar picture that got painted, it’s a room from your past. From the single bed to the posters at the wall.

You are stunned over the room, it brings back memories from your childhood, your youth and passed days. Not all are pleasant. “How?”

A computer voice speaks up again, “The room is calculated on base of your scan.”

You slowly strode around, touching some things on the table. It feels real, so it maybe is. “I don’t understand.”

“Your scan inherited a complete scan of your biometrics and your place in time,” the voice says and it makes you frown and turn around.

“My biometrics? And my place in time? Can you explain it to me, so that I understand it?”

“The Tardis scanned your body, your DNA and also your memories. Also the scan linked you with the Tardis to find the traces you left in time and space. Everything you are and will be is now catalogued in the Tardis computer,” the voice rattles down.

“I didn’t give you my consent!” you blurt out, realizing what this means. “Does this mean you know everything about me?”

“Yes.”

You think about it, “That’s impossible.”

“You cheated in fourth grade, in the test about geography and got the only A in class,” why does this computer voice sound so smug?

That’s true, “How do you know that?”

“The Tardis scanned you.”

“What else do you know?”

“Everything.”

“Everything is a lot. Nobody can know everything,” you speak against the walls, feeling stupid.

Then the voice starts to rattle down all kind of facts about you. When you are born, where, from weight over different locations you have lived, “Parents, current status; deceased. Circumstance; car ac-”

“I know!” you stop the voice. “Don’t need a remembrance here!” you come to an halt by a shelf and a few framed pictures. One is of your parents. As it stings in your heart, you place it with the front down. “So you say, you know everything about me, do you know about my future too?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes. You were linked with the Tardis, it now knows about your past, your present and your future. Based on this calculations-”

“Stop!” you hold up a finger. “You are not going to tell me about my future, don’t you?”

“Based on this calculations, you are considered important.”

“Important?” you swirl around back from the shelf. “Well, thanks, but I am really not important.”

“You saved the Doctor.”

“Point for you,” your head starts buzzing, and all the information is a bit too much, and you still are not pleased about your room. “Can we,.. can you change my room. I don’t really like it.”

The room vanishes again, and leaves you standing in the nothing. “What kind of room is expected?”

“How about something fancy, cosy and bit rebellious? Like… like, one of these fancy interior shots from tumblr, maybe?” you suggest. “You scanned me, so you will surely know what I mean.”

Turning around, you see that the Tardis seems to process your wish. ‘ _Searching information. Processing data.’_

Then the room slowly fills with interior. Old wooden book shelves. Light chains. Mattresses on the floor with a canopy like a tent. Books laying around. Wooden floor. Candles. Some nice art on the wall and when you look up you can see the sky. Space. You see stars. “This is… beautiful. Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” a male voice comes up and makes you turn around, to face a person standing in your room. Once more you stumble backwards, over the mattress, over your feet to land on the ground.

“Woah! Who are you?” you can see the person seems not to be real as it is slightly transparent. A projection maybe, but still scares the shit out of you.

“I am a visual projection of the Tardis computer.”

“You are a hologram?”

“Yes.”

“Couldn’t you have warned me before you do this?” you slowly raise back on your feet.

“Yes, indeed, I could have. I save this setting for later.”

“Yeah, do this,” you slowly approach the projection, and for a moment you both eye each other. Just for the fun of it, you move your upper body to the left and then to the right. The projection does the same. “Can I ask a question?”

“Surely.”

“Why are you looking like this, because, you look familiar.”

“I extracted this appearance out of your memory,” the man explains. “It seemed to have a calming effect on you. So I chose this form.”

“Yeah, well,” your bring your hand forward and reach through the projection, “you look like my history teacher. I had a crush on him when I was 15 so… bit disturbing now. Would you mind changing?”

“In what form?”

“I ... I don’t care, just nobody I know, please.”

The projection flickers for a few seconds and then has changed into a female appearance. You need to level your gaze from up to down, “Did you shrink now?”

The person in front of you wears high heels and seems still small to you, “Oy, watch it! I am 5ft 1inch!” it doesn’t sound like a computer voice, more like a teacher and it makes you step back. You have left school behind you, but still react to this certain tone of voice, all teachers seem to inhabit.

“Who are you?”

“I am the visual projection of the Tardis computer.”

“You said that. I mean, whose form is this?”

The woman in front of you makes some moves with her hands and some sort of data shows up aside of her. Carefully you come closer and start to read. “Clara Oswald… you are a former companion of the Doctor?” you stop reading because you feel it is none of your business.

“Yes.”

“I don’t want to have a projection of a former companion. Also I can’t imagine the Doctor would be really happy about it. Be someone else.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know. Be someone else.”

The projection flickers again and changes back into a male form. A white worn out shirt, a fancy waistcoat like from the 18th century and brown trousers, a dark bandanna around his neck and his hair is slightly curly, brown grown out hair. Not bad looking in your opinion.

“Oh, hello, who are you?”

“I am-”

“-don’t say you are a projection of the Tardis computer!” this computer will be the death of you.

“That’s correct.”

You raise your hand and brush through the projection because you are unnerved and lose your temper for a moment. The hologram disappears.

“Hey? Where did you go?” You don’t receive an answer. “Hello? Don’t tell me I angered you.”

The answer is a flicker of the light. “Really?” Another flicker. “Do I have a quarrel with a computer program now?” No reaction. “I do. Alright. I am sorry, it was not my intention to hurt you.” Still no reaction. “Oh, come on! I said I am sorry, you scanned me, you know I mean it!”

The projection returns, only an inch from your nose. You yelp and fall back into a stool, that the Tardis kindly materializes for your safety. “That was not nice!”

The man smiles, and it makes you aware, that each projection seems to have its own character. This one seems quite sassy, alone the smile tells you about it.

“Whose face are you wearing?” you know you shouldn’t ask, but curiosity was always your weakness.

“I am the Doctor,” the man turns with you while you check a couple of other stuff that lays around.

There are some books in the shelves you never have heard of and you wonder if the Tardis has materialized some future literature for you.

“The Doctor?” you look at him. “What Doctor? Surely not my Doctor.”

“Yes.”

You roll your eyes over the answer, making sure, he doesn’t see it. Not want to offend him once again - or her.

“Yes, what?”

“I am projecting the eighth incarnation of the Doctor for you,” the Tardis takes pity with you, and it even sounds like it.

Thinking about it, you believe the Tardis could talk Latin with you, you would understand more than you understand in the moment. It’s all cryptic and you know you have to tear the answers out of her.

“The... eighth incarnation?” ruffling your hair and scratching your head, you look at the man all tired and a unable to cope with it all. “Are you trying to tell me, you are the same person, like… Mister Grumpy Owl face, down the corridor?”

The man tilts his head, it seems he doesn’t understand what you mean. “The Doctor! You say you are the Doctor, but the Doctor I know, looks not like you! And you just told me you are his eighth incarnation… what does this mean? How many incarnations does he have?”

The man looks somewhere into the distance, obviously processing something and then smiles at you, “Yes.”

There you loses it, “What is this?” you whirl around, pumping your head softly against a shelf. “ Twenty questions? I hate that game!”

“Who are you talking to?”

It’s the voice of your Doctor and it startles you. Turning around you see him stand by the door, and you see, that the projection has vanished. “I… for how long are you already standing there?”

“Long enough to hear you talk to someone,” he doesn’t step inside your room, only stands by the door, but you notices he looks around, takes your room in. Hoping you would find some appreciation in his mimic, he only turns back to you, and seems to wait for an answer.

“I was talking to myself,” you step forward. “That’s what people do.”

“That is not what people do,” he says harsh, frowning at you. You can’t follow why he seems angry with you.

“Well, it’s what I do! I tend to talk with myself,” you shove your hands into your pockets, and wonder why the Tardis has dematerialized. Something is up here. Again the Doctor lets his eyes travel around your room, and you want to invite him - maybe it is what he wants from you, but when you want to do it, he steps back without saying anything.

Torn between asking more questions to the Tardis and also asking more questions to the Doctor you decide for the later, and follow him, “Doctor! Is there a chance, to grab something to eat somewhere. I am really hungry.”

Back in the console room he turns around again, “Yes. Yes, indeed, I know a good restaurant.”

“At the end of the universe?” you smirk over your own joke, and earn a miffed expression from him.

“The universe has no end, because-”

Stopping him from giving you a lecture, you interrupt, “-it’s round, I know.”

You lean against the handrail, looking around the console room with a meaningful expression. The Doctor grasps you want to tell him something, but you learn he is not trained in human humour, but very good with funny faces. “Round,” you stretch the word and make a round form with your hands. “Like… oh forget about it. Restaurant? Yeah? I am starving.”

“Better not let that happen,” the expression of his is stern, and he turns around to the lever. Only for a short moment, you see him relax, see him smile - also there is a chance you only imagined it.

You sit down onto one of the chairs, watching him fly the Tardis.

‘ _The eighth incarnation of the Doctor.’_

This adventure seems more complicated as you thought.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, slowly I scatter little hints about the deeper plot around in the chapters. Hope you enjoyed this one. Already working on the next chapter.


	6. 06_A lively lunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor takes you to a diner, for something to eat and you both talk a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> More background about the Reader and some character development between 12 and you. A bit of fun also.

The Doctor takes you to a restaurant in another galaxy, in the year 12583 as he says, and that looks like a diner on earth. You guess, that’s either mankind spreading very far in the universe or just coincidence and the Doctor does it on purpose to not freak you completely out on this trip - after the first had went so wrong.

A person, humanoid form, four arms, lilac skin colour, approaches your table, and asks what you want to eat. You notice that you understand each word they says, and you will ask the Doctor about it, as soon as the alien is gone again.

Unsure what to order, as it is your first time in an intergalactic space diner, you go for the first thing that pops up in your mind, “I guess, you don’t have burgers and some fries?”

“Of course we have!” the answer sounds very peeved, like ‘ _have a little more trust, stranger’_.

“Oh,” you give the man, you think it’s a man, an excusing smile. One eye on the Doctor, who only watches your interaction, he will surely not help you with your order. Also, you might not be a hero, but you can order your own food, even if it’s in the year twelve thousand, “Then, burger and fries please.”

The waiter turns over to the Doctor but he declines and then toddles off.

“Why does he… she… it… something, speak English?” you lean over the table.

“Tardis translation interface,” the Doctor plays with the menu around. “Translates everything for us, as long as she is around.”

“How does she do that?”

“Time Lord technology,” is his short answer and he shoves the menu away again, his arms spread over the bench he sits, looking at you. You are not sure why, but he seems to see how you react to such information.

“Time Lord? So you are a Time Lord?” what makes sense you think, as he is in possession of a time machine.

“Yes.”

Nervously you clap your hands together, looking around in the room. Not many people are there, but the one you see, are all but humans. One looks like a gigantic furby you think. “Sounds more like a title and not a race, yes?”

He only leans back a bit and smiles at you almost a bit patronizing, and you really don’t know what you have done wrong. Something _you have_ done wrong, as he will not give you an answer. Have you been too´blunt? Wrong question, maybe?

“Who are you?” you finally find the courage to keep going in your curiosity - it’s time for a talk between alien and human. Doctor and new companion.

“I told you,” he blinks, sensing which way you want to go. “I’m the Doctor.”

One day, everything will be not complicated, but this is not the day, “I am sure there is more than a name. And a title, called Time Lord.”

“Like what?”

“Like what planet you are from?” you press. “A race. A something,” you say it more passionate as you want, but the coldness of the Doctor causes the effect in you. You met some restrained people in your life. Reserved and considering every emotion that was in them. Non-emotion on the other side makes you even more emotional.

After a minute in which he seems to think if he should tell you more about him - or he might only cat naps, he finally says; “Gallifrey.”

“Galli...frey?” you have the feeling that you have to pull each answer out of his mouth letter by letter. “And that is where? Ireland?”

He chuckles, “No.”

This will be a very unnerving conversation, “You can say, if you not want to talk about you.”

“I not want to talk about me,” he grumbles, and you find your fingers by the edge of the table, fumbling. This is not how you hoped the conversation would go.

“Okay,” if he not wants to talk about him, he might wants to talk about you. “Why did you take me? As your companion?”

“You seemed suitable,” he gives you a smirk.

“Suitable,” you had worst dates, that had better compliments. “How flattering.”

“You seemed fearless, and brave enough, and…,” you see the Doctor’s eyes trail off into distance, with his thoughts.

“And?”

“And nothing,” he hits the tabletop with his flat hand and makes you shrug. “I don’t need cowards. Also you seemed to be _a bit_ smarter than the rest of the pudding brains I usually meet, so I went with you.”

“Ah,” its all you say at first, considering his words, still asking yourself what should have came after the ‘ _and’_ in his last sentence. You can’t be sure, but you believe he had travelled alone for a while, so far you remember from your first talk in the Tardis after you had saved him.

“Also you seemed,” he goes on by himself, “eager.”

“Eager?” now it’s you being afraid of questions to come. “Shouldn’t one be, when meeting a time travelling alien?”

“Some are, some are not,” he leans forward, arms on the table. “So you want us to go back to your… flat, picking some stuff up?”

The question irritates you, “No.”

“No?” he does as if he is surprised, but you can see in his eyes, that he has expected this answer. “Why not?”

“What for?”

“I don’t know, usually my companions, want to pick up some… clothes, or momentums,” he explains. “Or check for their family.”

Ah, you think, clever time lord. Twisting you into a conversation about you and not about him, “No. Also the Tardis seems to have provided me with clothes and everything I need.”

“That’s right, yes, and still odd,” he leans back again. “I could have bet, you wanted to see your parents after what has happened.”

“What has happened?”

“Near death experience.”

You shudder over the thought, “There is no family. So spares you a trip around the galaxy.”

“Oh,” he says, disappointed maybe. As trips around the galaxy seems to be his best amusement.

For a bit you observe him, your thoughts rattling. He seems not to know that your parents are no more with you, but the Tardis knew. So the question is, does he might know, and plays a game with you, or does the Tardis play a game with both of you. You try a dare.

“Shouldn’t you know?”

“What exactly?”

“My parents are dead,” you say without looking him in the eyes. You never do, when you tell someone about it. “That’s why I don’t need to go back to earth.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” the expression on his face is genuine, and then slips into a frown. “How should I know that?”

He really didn’t know, “Ah, just thought, you might be some omniscient species.”

“I am actually,” he says smug. “Also I would say, to know everything about the life of 7 Billion pudding brains, would be maybe a bit too much to ask for.”

“Would the Tardis know?”

“What makes you ask that?”

“Oh, I just thought, she seems to be a… super computer, translating everything we speak at the moment,” you know your poker face is not the best. “I only guessed she has some sort of database about people. Like... like a telephone book.” Gosh, can you talk even more nonsense?

The answer seems to please the Doctor, “Oh, yes, one could say that.”

“They died when I was five, so…,” you go on, more talking to yourself as to him, fixing a distant point in the room. “I grew up with an aunt of mine. A good woman, but … well, no one can replace the one you really loved. The year I reached legal age, she died. Left me a couple of quids but I was on my own from there on,” for a moment you lock eyes with the Doctor.

He listens to you, with an expression of pain on his face. You ask yourself how hold he might be and if he has kids, or if his parents are still around. First you thought, surely not, but then the Tardis told you about the eighth incarnation and you concluded that there is something with his race. Getting reborn and stuff. Not that you can ask him about it right now. You smile dismissively.

For a reason you wait for him, to ask you more questions. About you, about your reasons to travel with him. Either he seems not interested or to scared to ask. “You are right.”

“About what?”

“That I was eager, travelling with you,” you sigh. “In case you care about it. Right now, you don’t look like it. You sure you want to travel with me?”

He is taken aback, cocking an eyebrow at you, not making any intentions to speak up, you feel heat run through your body. Silence between people is always something that makes you nervous, as it gives your brain the opportunity of thinking about the weirdest stuff. What if he really not wants to travel with you? What if he thinks, he has made an companion-error with you?

Shit, you think, while he only looks at you, with a mix out of curiosity and the expression of a predator you feel your heart beat hard against your inner self, he might will bring you back to earth after this.

Ready to beg him not to do it, you open your mouth, only to be interrupted, “Of course I am sure, I only take the best, and …”

There again, one of those dangerous ‘ _and’_ , and this time you are not willing to let him not go on, “You do this often, don’t you? Not ending a sentence,” you earn another predator look, but you ignore it. It only spurs you on. “Or maybe you do, but only in your head. That’s actually something like talking out loud, as you told me, that’s what people don’t do - but they do, the same as they end sentences in their head, where nobody else can hear them.”

“You are pretty cheeky for someone who sits ten thousand years in the future at the other side of the universe,” he looks over you. “Never ever someone told you, to not anger the driver?”

Placing your hands onto the table, the cold surface calms you slightly, you bit onto your tongue, rolling your eyes slowly around, as if you were thinking, “No. No. … No. Is this usually a live lesson someone should get, like having ‘ _Aliens’_ in school?”

His stern look eases away into a gentle smile, “And!” he then speaks up loud. “And… I have forgotten what I wanted to say. Rassilion!”

“Happens to the best of us,” you shrug, and smirk over his flaw.

The Doctor huffs, he knows he should ask you questions, he knows he should show some interest. He starts an attempt, “The thing is, I have travelled for so long alone now. And before that I was travelling with … with someone for quite a while. And-”

“And then when you travel with someone new, it’s hard to get used to company. Hard to be around someone, after being alone for so long,” you fumble with the menu on the desk. It’s not hard to get into the Doctor’s point of view. You’ve been alone for so long, not letting anyone in, that you can’t remember how it is to be with someone, a partner or a friend for longer than an hour. Looking down onto your phone, you pull out of your pockets, you figure you both have spent already half a day together. New record.

Soundless you place the phone in front of you, spinning it in a childish manner, and then meet the Doctor’s eyes. First you assume he is angry with you, as you guess he is no one who likes to be interrupted, but what you meet are kind eyes. He understands.

“Yes,” his hand reaches out to your phone and flips it around, then takes his sonic out and buzzes over it a few times.

“What are you doing?”

“Only a bit of jiggery pokery,” he flips the phone again and holds it out to you in his palm.

Giving him a sarcastic chuckle over the term, you take the phone back and tap the glass, looking puzzled at him.

“I reconfigured it. You are now able to call from anywhere in time and space to earth. And the Tardis, too,” he explains.

“Oh,” for a moment you think to make a test call, but there is no one to call, and so you only check your contacts and find the Doctor in the list now. Smiling, you put the phone away. “Thank you.”

Before you both can go on with your talk, the waiter comes back and places a plate in front of you, only to vanish after it.

“That actually looks like a burger and fries,” you turn the plate 360 degrees around and observe the food. It looks like it, it smells like it and the fries taste like fries. “This is really good food.”

“Mh,” is the only thing the Doctor says, and you wonder if he needs to eat or if he might only feeds from other things, like little children or a special sort of fruit that only exists in a shadow galaxy. You push your wild going imagination aside and start to eat.

The Doctor watches you, and it’s almost embarrassing for you, but then you notice this glimmer in his eyes, this spark of mischief and then you look down onto your burger, “It’s not really a burger, is it?”

Opening his jacket, he pulls out his sonic screwdriver and starts to scan the food, “No, not really.”

“Oh great,” you gasp. You remember one time, a customer urging you to eat a grasshopper covered in chocolate.

“It’s not for vegetarians,” he puts the sonic away again.

“As long as it’s dead, I am fine with everything,” you bite again, ignoring the little devil inside your head telling you about chocolate grasshoppers.

“That’s debatable.”

You almost spit out your food, “Your are kidding, right?”

“Of course I do,” he smirks, but it doesn’t reaches his eyes.

“No, you don’t,” you place the burger down and shove it away. “Oh, god, what is it?”

“It’s-”

“-No wait, don’t!” you close your eyes urging the nausea away. “Never ever tell me what I eat, as long as it is not poisoned or some sort of.”

“Sure?”

“Can we go? I think I find something to eat in the Tardis, if this is okay for you,” you stand up without waiting for the Doctor.

“You not want to take this to go?”

“Hell, no!” you don’t look back to the burger, believing you have seen something move at another table, that is been eaten by the oversized furby.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I always try to give you a bit more info in each chapter, push the story forward and also give you a bit fun too. Maybe you guessed this story is not always about adventures but about the relationship between the Reader and the Doctor. Also I have planned a bit of action for the next chapter.


	7. 07_Are you kidding me?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You are about to leave the diner, but it turns out someone wants you to settle the bill.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little bit of adventure and banter.

You two are about to leave the diner, when a huge robot stops you. Metal sound and rattling. He is in shining silver and his face is a blank space with a red bar, something like a scanner, taller as even the Doctor and you back away a bit.

“Stop!” its electronic voice demands you, and his thick metal body is standing in your way. “You haven’t paid the food.”

“Oh,” both the Doctor and you relax a little. For a second you both were afraid, the thing was in for some trouble.

“Sorry about that, was not on purpose. It was a misunderstanding,” you turn to the Doctor. “Can you pay this one? I don’t think I have money for this time, yet.”

The Doctor eyes first the robot and then turns to you, with a face that tells you that trouble is indeed ahead.

 _‘Oh, no,’_ you think. How can you read this man already so good, after just a couple of hours?

“The thing is,” the Doctor begins slowly. “I don’t carry money with me.”

With a surprised shake of your head, you stare a moment into the distance, then flash the robot a grin and turn to the Doctor, “Just to be clear, you are taking me out for food, in a diner, and then you don’t have money with you, for paying?”

“Yes,” he confirms.

“You are kidding me, right?”

“No,” he answers, but still seems to search for some money in his pockets. “I usually don’t got out for lunch or dinner, so …”

“Alright, alright, alright,” you reach into your pockets of your jacket, and grab out your purse. “How much do we own you? Here,” you pull out twenty pounds, and hold it out to the robot, “will this settle the problem?”

You are well aware that it is a lame try, but as the Doctor is not very helpful, it seems to be your only chance and it is your only idea. The only money you have, and maybe with some luck, the British Pound is still something worth these days.

The robot scans the money with his face. Endless seconds go by, and then, “This paper is useless.”

“Hey!” you protest and snap the money back again. “You can’t tell the Queen she is useless! So what are we going to do now? Washing some dishes, till the bill is paid?” the look of the Doctor somehow communicates you that this will not do.

Again endless seconds tick by, and as nobody makes a move, you decide to go, “Let’s go, Doctor. I am sure they will survive it. This metal bin seems not very capable.”

But the metal bin reaches out for you, and holds you as the Doctor by the arm, “Execution!” the robot blurts and an alarm in the restaurant goes off with much light and noise, but except you and the Doctor nobody seems to care. You see the furby look up for a moment, and then, noticing that its food is on the run, returns enjoying its meal.

“What?” both of you call out, trying to pull your arms free. “You got to be kidding us!”

For a second the robot holds still, and you actually believe that he lets you go and says something like _“of course I do”._

His real answer instead is more frightful, “I am not programmed for making jokes. Not paying the bill leads to imprisonment and is followed by execution in the morning.”

Within seconds the robot has put a pair of chains on your left hand and onto the right hand of the Doctor. You are now bound to each other.

“Wait, wait,” the Doctor whirls with his free hand, drying to grab something to hold on, the chain rattling between you both. “I am sure there is a solution!” his free hand reaches into his pockets and pulls out something like a usb drive. “See what I just found! Credits! We can pay with credits, can’t we?”

Going down a long corridor, more dragged as walked, you find the strength to being obviously bugged by the Doctor, more than by the idea of being executed in the morning, “I thought, you don’t have money!” you snarl at him.

He gives you one of his eyebrows, “I lied. Always having some credits with me, just in case.”

“What cases? Like emergency cases?” you ask and he nods. “Like this!”

“I couldn’t foresee they going to execute us!” he growls back.

“I thought you are an omniscient alien?” you fall over your feet, losing balance. The robot doesn’t stop, and the rest of the way you get dragged over the floor, almost ripping the Doctor’s arm out.

“I am!” he tries to make the robot slow down, by tearing away from him into the other direction, so you can stand up again. His actions are appreciated by you, aside they don’t have any effect. “Also I admit, this might has slipped me.”

Your response to that answer can be only a long groan by you.

The robot ignores your banter, and ignores that the Doctor has money and only states that it is too late for the payment. “Violation of intergalactic rule Number 28742, Paragraph 16 has happened and can not be reversed.”

The robot stops in front of a door, and after scanning it, it opens and you both get thrown into. Then the door closes with a bang. The room is empty, and only lit with faint light.

“I can’t believe this!” you bang with one hand against the door, checking if it is open - what it isn’t.

“You are... ,” you turn around, facing a sitting Doctor on the floor beside you. “You lied!”

He rolls his eyes at you, “Of course I did,” he tucks at the chain and makes you sit too. “Rule Number one, the Doctor lies.”

You are about to lose it. There is a huge chance someone in this room will be strangled before execution time, “That’s the spirit! Lying, brings you anywhere, right? Within 12 hours I am facing dead for the third time!” your back bumps against the wall, your face buried in your hands.

When after a minute or so, you realize the Doctor hasn’t said anything, you look up, finding him grinning at you, like an evil, mischievous spirit, “And that’s exactly why you like it.”

It’s not a question and you hate him almost for being so precise. You probably never felt more alive as in the last 12 hours, “Oh, damn you!” You try to be angry, you try to be stern, but you give up and break into a smile. “Okay, what is the plan?”

Licking his lips, smiling, he holds up a finger in the air, and pulls out his sonic screwdriver, presenting it to you as if it’s the answer to everything. As you are the _new_ companion, you don’t know it actually is.

“What? Are you going to build a cabinet?”

“Ha, ha, very funny,” he jumps up, and you must follow his example.

“I’m not kidding,” you lean against the wall, watching him start to sonic the door. You develope a little childishness and raise the one arm that is tied to his, only to see his arm go up with it.

Glaring at you he yanks his arm down, “Give me some credit,” and with that some sparks fly around the lock of the door and the thing snaps open. “Ha!” he cheers and grabs your hand, “Time to go.”

“Already? I thought we wait for the room service,” you pull the door back into the lock. “Live a little.”

The Doctor chuckles, observing the corridor left and right from you, “Now, _you are_ kidding.”

Smirking, you yank at the chain and pull him back into a small corner, as you have seen the robot again, and he hasn’t. Already about to protest you place a hand over his mouth and motion over to the robot. Hearing the metal sound of the thing move over the floor, he presses against you, and you stop breathing, not wanting to let any kind of friction between your bodies happen.

You both lock eyes for a moment, when you start noticing something and frown down between of you.

“What is it?” the Doctor whispers, sensing your discomfort.

“As you are holding your Sonic in your hand, I was just wondering…,” you motion down and the Doctor first raises an eyebrow at you, unsure what you mean, when realisation settles in.

With a smacking sound, he shakes his head in impatience, “That’s not it,” he reaches into his pocket, and retrieves a smaller glass rod. “It’s a fluid link. Provides power to the Tardis. Always carry a second one around with me.”

“Why?” you ask puzzled, not even sure why you ask. Probably you know you have to use any possibility to get infos out of the Doctor. Useful or not.

He gives the glass rod a look, smirks, and then shoves the fluid link back into his pockets, “As a reminder. Now come on, the robot is gone.”

“Ah, at least it explains, why it felt so small,” you smirk down the floor, deliberately not facing the Doctor.

“Are you making an innuendo?”

“Never would allow me that.”

After you both walk a minute down a corridor and go a few turns left and right, you think, something is not right and stop abruptly, the Doctor almost falling over when he reaches the limit of the chain range, “What is it?”

“Are you sure that is the correct way? I think we are wrong, Doctor,” you turn nervously around, afraid someone will catch you in the end, to make you executed right away.

“Do you think I forgot where I parked the Tardis?” the Doctor is visibly annoyed, but you decide to ignore it. Not after he had misjudged the parking spot around 30 thousand feet.

Also you do as if you think about it only to answer “Yes!” loud and clear and you regret it immediately when the robot comes around the corner and stands behind the Doctor - who can’t see the thing yet. With wide open eyes, you grab the chain, and tug him into your direction, “I really think, we… should try the other way.”

With an unaccepting emotion he turns around, “No! I know where I parked, I will not-,” again you softly tug at the chain, waiting for his reconsideration of the situation.

“Prisoners are fleeing. Security measures initiating,” the robotic voice echoes through the floor. “Execution accelerated.” With that the red beam in his face starts to light up. There is something coming and you both know it will not be a good thing.

The Doctor whirls around, “You are right. We try the other way!”

Before the first laser shot can hit you, you and the Doctor run down the corridor. The robot follows, shooting lasers in constant rate at you. Luckily the thing seems not very accurate and misses - although sometimes by a hair's breadth.

“And that only because you didn’t pay the bill!” you yell, ducking down after one shot sparks a small fire by frame over your head.

The Doctor brings out his sonic and brings some electronic wirings that spread over the ceiling of the floor to an explosion, “Why should I pay your lunch? One could think we had a date or something!”

“Because-,” you spot the Tardis. “Oh, never mind! The Tardis!”

The little firework the Doctor has lit, is not a big distraction for the robot and so he is close behind, but still he “fires shots” with the sonic, while you lead the way toward the blue box.

“Key?” you call out, when only away for fifty meters.

“Snap your fingers!” he brings another pipeline to burst.

“What?”

“Just do it!”

So you do it, and to your surprise the door goes wide open and within ten seconds you both fall into the Tardis, down to the floor in front of the console room. The Doctor snaps his fingers, the door goes shut again, and then he reaches up over his head, to pull down the lever, and off you are again into the time vortex.

“That’s the second time in under 12 hours,” he pants. “I am not sure, but we’re building up a new record I think.”

It’s not very comfortable laying on the hard floor, but you are out of breath and also tired and more worst, “I am still hungry.”

The Doctor turns his head and you expect him to shout at you, but instead he longs into the inside of his coat and pulls out a banana and gives it to you.

“Are you kidding me?” you take the yellow food as if it is the torch of light. “You carry a banana with you?”

“Yep,” he takes the sonic and releases the handcuff around his wrist, but makes no intention to free you from your jewelry. As you are busy eating, you don’t mind yet. “Always carry a banana. They are good!”

Full mouth you answer, “Can’t object.” Then a long yawn escapes you.

“You should lie down, sleep a bit,” the Doctor hops up from the floor. “I leave the Tardis in the Vortex.”

Now with the approval of the Doctor exhaustion settles into you like a heavy blanket. Pedestrian you bring yourself up from the floor to your feet, holding out your arm with the handcuff, “Would you mind?”

He sonics your arm free, the metal falls to the ground and the next thing you can remember is your face hitting your pillow in your room.

Weird, you think, you hadn’t walked as long as you did the last time to reach your room. You really have to ask the Tardis some questions later, but for now, you settle into a deep sleep.

Not knowing, that your next adventure already awaits you - in your own room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I guess everybody knows about the Banana, so no explanation needed. For some it is may be helpful to know, that the first Doctor in S1 needed to replace the Fluid Link in the Tardis (what was a lie, as he wanted to explore the Dalek City) and Ian Chesterton was very "not amused" about all this. So just a little "throw back moment".
> 
> Next chapter will be a bit more Tardis centered.


	8. 08_This might hurt

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You need sleep, but the Tardis wants you to ask questions. Turning Point.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter will be a bit of a turning point in this fic. Please read later notes for better understanding, as I not want to spoil anything here.  
> The informations of several things here I took from tardis wiki.  
> Also thanks for leaving comments and reading this fic!

You fall down onto the mattress in your room, dead tired, and you are able to grab a blanket to pull it over you, and then fall asleep.

When you start to have the feeling someone or something is watching you, you can’t tell how long you have slept. Feeling your bones ache, and a heavy tiredness in you, you know it’s not long since you has fallen asleep, so you try to fall back into your slumber. But you can’t push the feeling aside of being watched and open your eyes, only to find a pair of blue eyes staring at you only two inches away from your face.

Screaming you jump up and crawl to the other side of the bed, “Jesus! F… damn!”

It’s the Tardis hologram in form of the man you have met the last time. Innocently he looks up to you, while you stand with your hands over your heart in the corner of the room, “Glad you are up.”

“You scared the living daylights out of me!” you call out. “Why did you do this?”

“I was curious,” the man smirks for a short moment.

Slowly you step away from the corner and settle down into a chair, “Curious? About what? How to freak someone out?”

“Humans always state that they can feel it when they are watched,” the hologram explains. “I simply never had the chance to find out. Till now.”

Burying your head in your face, you realize, you are still tired and exhausted, “Do me a favour, never _ever_ do that again. You can kill someone with this,” well aware that the Tardis does not confirm your request, you rub your tired eyes. “How long have I slept?”

“An hour.”

“An hour? You do know humans need a bit more sleep than just one hour, don’t you?” you are agitated, and erratic and glad the Tardis is only a hologram, as you would dare to strangle him when he would be real.

“Yes, I know,” there is such innocent in it that you are asking yourself if the Tardis is actually a child. For a second you consider, the Tardis just wanted to play a joke with you, and you can go back to sleep, but then you realize that this is not going to happen.

“Why did you wake me up?”

“I thought, you might have some more questions,” the hologram materializes into the seat across from you. “Out of experience, the companions don’t spend long in their rooms, as they join the Doctor when awake.”

After a long yawn, you give his words a sniff and then grab a blanket from the floor, as it is cold, “And you don’t want the Doctor to know that you are speaking with me, right? That’s why you vanished the last time.”

“Do you want me to raise the temperature in your room?” is the question instead, while you snuggle into the blanket.

You give it a laugh, “I take that as a yes. And no, you don’t have to do this. Do you do this with all the companions? Conspiracies and stuff?”

“No.”

“Why with me?” you look around, wishing for a coffee. Something that brings you back to life.

“You’re considered important.”

As your brain is still in ‘ _sleep mode’_ you have a hard time right now. The words don’t sink in. Blowing some air, you try to find out where to start with your questions. The Tardis seems to notice. “The Doctor needs you.”

“Ha, ha!” you lean back into your chair. “What the Doctor needs is a ‘ _how to be nice to humans’_ class, and not me.”

The man suddenly looks into the distance, processing something, and then comes back to you, “There is no such class.”

“That was a joke.” He doesn’t answer you, only stares at you. “Alright, fine. Questions. You are a picture of the eighth incarnation of the Doctor, my Doctor, yes?”

“Correct.”

“How many incarnations are there?” you lean a bit forward and the copy-doctor does the same, but doesn’t give you an answer. “Really? You want me to ask questions, and then don’t answer them? Fine, can you show me the … fifth incarnation of the Doctor?”

The Hologram starts to flicker and the curly haired man changes into another man with blonde hair and an outfit that reminds you of some cricket national team member. “Can you show me the… twenty second incarnation of the Doctor?”

“The Doctor has no twenty second incarnation yet,” is the simple answer.

“21?” he shakes his head, “20?” he shakes his head, “Oh, come on! That’s too stupid, I am going to bed again!” you stand up and walk over to the mattress again, only to see it dematerialize. Slowly you turn around, glaring at the old self of the eighth version. “That is not even remotely funny!”

“You are asking the wrong questions,” the man steps up to you, and your mattress comes back.

“Listen, Tardis, I am … I am no computer, I don’t follow logic, give me a bit to ask the right questions,” you whine, but decide to approach the problem differently. “When there are different incarnations of the Doctor, of the same man, does it mean, the Doctor can’t die.”

“The Doctor can die when his regenerations cycle has come to an end.”

“Regeneration? So, he regenerates… when?” Why does this always happen when you are not in the mood for it? You need sleep so desperately.

“In the consequence of illness, old age or deadly injury.”

Sighing long, you need a long stare of the hologram in front of you, to get reminded, that it is your turn to say something, “Sorry. So, when you are number eight, and this other bloke, was number five, it means you guys change your face?” Talking about the obvious is always a good start.

“Regeneration causes a complete physical and often psychological change.” You don’t even understand half of it, at least it explains why your Doctor is a grumpy owl and this one a playful puppy.

“Okay,” ruffling your hair first, then you jump up, the blanket around your shoulders and start to pace up and down, sorting all the questions in your head. “He said he is from Gallifrey, that’s a planet, yes?”

“That’s correct. Gallifrey, located in the constellation of Kasterborous, at galactic coordinates 10-0-11-00:02 from Galactic Zero Centre.”

“And he is a Time Lord, that’s what? A rank? Or is everybody a Time Lord on Gallifrey?”

“A Time Lord or a Time Lady is a rank you become after finishing the Academy,” the copy-Doctor follows you with his eyes from left to the right and back. While you pace you finally realize that you can ask questions all night long, you will never run out of them and then finally you become aware, that there is just one question that is important. For you and for the Tardis.

“Why?” you point with both your forefingers out to the hologram. “Why I am considered important? Why are you making me ask all this questions? Why do I need to know it? Why do I have the feeling, all the others, all the many companions - the rooms I saw - weren’t …. allowed to know it. Why me?” Okay, that’s maybe a bit more than just one question.

The hologram stands up, “You considered important. You save the Doctor. You need to understand. If you don’t understand, you will give up. It is important that you don’t.”

Many questions. Many answers. All your own fault. “I’ll give up? What? Travelling with him?”

“Surviving.”

“W-what? I am not planning on … dying soon,” how can you know. “Also I am not suicidal.” 

“There will come a time, you will be.”

“Are you kidding-, oh forget it!” you pull the blanket tighter around you. “You said, I save the Doctor. Not I saved.”

“That’s correct,” the hologram materializes aside from you. “You save the Doctor. You _will_ save the Doctor.”

The last film about time travel you watched, you lost track after half the movie in, and now the Tardis wants you to follow real time travel logic stuff. “I don’t understand!”

“You need to ask more questions,” there is an urge, a pressing, a want. An impatience.

“I can ask question all day long, and still don’t understand,” you throw the blanket to the floor. “I don’t even know what to ask!”

“There is an easier way,” the Tardis processes something. “I can project the information into your head.”

This doesn’t sounds appealing, “Can you? How?”

The copy-doctor steps up to you and holds up his hands, unsure what to do, you hold up your hands too, but he pats your hands away, and there you feel his touch, and it makes you jump back. “I thought you are a hologram! Y-you just touched me! How…?”

“I can become a physical, graspable form for short moments,” he explains and steps up to you again, bringing his hands toward your head. “This might could hurt a bit.”

Like a fish you gape at his doings, “What are you going to do?”

“I am transferring everything you need to know into your head. It’s like a data transmission.”

“And then?”

“You will understand,” he gives you a reassuring smile, and even you now it’s only a program you feel a bit saver as before. “Do I have your consent?”

This never can be a good idea. “Yes,” you swallow and lean slightly in. Cold fingertips touch your temples and your scalp.

“Again,” he says low. “This might hurt.”

You wanted adventure all your life long, and now you get it, you are scared to the bones, “Oh, just get it over with!”

He nods, and something in his eyes tells you, it will not only hurt a bit, “Beginning transfer.”

The pain brings you down to your knees. The copy-doctor following you, not letting go of you. You feel as someone tries to rip off your head, heat running into your temples, round your brain down your spine, till you feel you will burn. Burn alive.

It takes everything from you. Every spark of courage, of will to fight the pain and makes you internally beg to let be free. It takes your last breathe, and aside you are screaming, there is no sound escaping your mouth.

That’s it, you think. First you almost got killed by three Axons, then you fell out of the Tardis, almost got eaten by a psychedelic monster and then killed by a thing that could have escaped H.G. Wells War of Worlds. And now, you get killed by the Tardis yourself. It’s your lucky day!

“Stay with me!” you hear a voice, and you don’t know if it is your own, if it is the Tardis or just a dream. “Don’t shut down. Five more seconds.”

You want to tell, that you don’t have five more seconds. That your heart is about to jump out of your chest, as it seems to get grilled or vaporized, or whatever. You don’t have the time, you don’t want to have the time, you only want to get rid of the pain.

And then everything goes black and numb, and you can’t be sure, but it’s too you as if you are between life and death. It’s like laying at the beach, sand covering your body, a gentle pressure rising, till your face is covered and it makes you stop breathing.

“Starting resuscitation,” you hear in the distance.

“What?” it’s only a thought in your head.

“Stay with me!” and then there is a ice cold feeling on your chest, and then the life that has left you momentary, returns into your body with a loud gasp. With a hard beat of your heart.

Flinging open your eyes, you see everything in a blur. A moving figure hovers over you and slowly the contours become clear. The Doctor. No, the Tardis in form of the Doctor.

‘ _The eighth incarnation.’_

“Resuscitation - successful.”

You want to shove the hands that bring you into an upright position, away, but the Tardis has returned into the form of a transparent hologram, and you grasp into emptiness.

Unable to talk yet, you fall forward onto all four and crawl as far away from the Tardis as you can. In your head everything is spinning. Beeping, like someone has fired a loud canon aside your ear.

There are shadows, moving figures, and you can’t be sure if it is real or a hallucination. You hear voices too. Many, many, voices.

“Shut up!” you mumble.

“I am not talking,” the copy-doctor says, concern in his eyes.

You watch his closed lips, while the voices in your head keep going. “I know. What did you do to me?”

Slowly you bring yourself back onto your feet, reaching out for a table to prevent you from falling.

“I projected everything you need to know into your brain.”

You have problems hearing him, as all the voices in your head seem to try to get your attention, “Shh!” you point into the emptiness. “Shut up! Shut up! Shuttity up up up!” It seems to help, the voices get lower. Frowning over the phrasing, you never have used before, you exchange a look with the Tardis.

“It seems to work already,” the man smirks.

“What do you mean? I have all those things in my head. Pictures. Voices! What exactly did you project into my head?”

“Everything there is,” he explains. “From day one, till today. Almost everyday of the Doctor’s life. Every memory, every thought. Everything.”

“Huh!” you feel a horrible pain crawl up your spine, directly into your head. “Everything? Almost? The Doctor... how old is the Doctor?” You know the answer, it is somewhere in your head, buried under all kind of information. Names. Happenings. Words. Planets.

“Oh, my god!” you finally see the answer, when you have shuffled all the other information aside, and you back away, bumping against a bookshelf, “You projected 2200 years into my head!”

“1600, to be precise, I left out 600 from Trenzelore, as they were utterly boring.”

“Well, what a lucky day!” you yell. “I almost died!”

“Yes, but I was able to bring you back,” you can’t imagine him more proud as in this moment. “I couldn’t be sure about your survival, to be honest.”

“Oh! Allons-y! Let’s kill the new companion!” you fall back onto your knees. “Why I am saying such thing? I don’t even know what it means…”

“Let’s go, in French,” the Tardis hologram says softly and kneels in front of you, for a moment you think to see someone else. A man in a suit and with ridiculous hair pointing in every direction there is. Checking your eyes with a little lamp, or another screwdriver. “Your brain is processing now all the data. This will take a while. You already noticed voices and hallucinations, this is part of the processing.”

“I have a headache,” you only say.

“It will go away,” he scans you with the thing in his hands.

You have the feeling you stare way too long at him, when you say, “Twelve. No, thirteen. Thirteen faces. You are many,” the information rushes over you like a waterfall. It is so quick, you only can catch up little bits. “Lucie Miller!” you point out, as you make the connection between the face you see and the name of the past companion.

“You need sleep.”

“Did you say something, Chatterton? No, Chasterfield! Ian! What’s his name?” you stumble back onto your feet, tumbling through the room. “This is too much! Why did you do this?”

“You need to understand!”

“I don’t want to understand! It’s too much, I’m only a human, I can’t! It hurts so much!” you see a shadow moving, and you whirl around only to fall hard onto the floor. “The girl who waited. Fantastic! Christmas… there is town called Christmas? How rubbish.. as apples. I am regenerating! No, I am not! I am me! It’s too much! Daleks! Daaalekssss!” the pain in your head feels like someone twisting a knife in your brain.

The eighth Doctor grabs your shoulders, and pushes you down onto the mattress, “You need to sleep now. In three days the headache will go away, and your brain will have processed most of the information I projected into your head.

“I need to sleep,” you whisper, and then another memory pops up. “You didn’t even like Clara, at first. You moved her room, all the time! Clara Oswald, the impossible girl. And then... Big Bang two. Reset the universe… I save the Doctor… I...need to.. sleep.”

“Sleep now.”

You feel his hand on your forehead, probably measuring your fever, that is rising quickly. “He stole you…,” you whisper in a daze, drifting off to sleep. “No,... you stole him.”

And then you sleep - for a whole week.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Many things have happened here, and I can understand when you might NOT understand everything. Please, don't be shy, leave such questions in the comments! I as Writer know you have questions, and I will answer some in later chapters, but of course, I can't see all questions, so you maybe give me good ideas or clues, and will realize I have to write a bit more to explain some stuff. This counts for all chapters!
> 
> To write it here once more, in case someone has only question marks over their head; the Tardis has projected all the information into the new companion as the Tardis is linked with the Doctor (that's my interpretation, not sure if this is canon). When you think about it, this is much, and the companion will have trouble to deal with all this. The next chapter will talk about all this, so don't you worry, I am sure you will grasp my idea.
> 
> I have to tell you, I have only seen a bit of One, than 8 - 12, my knowledge of 2-7 is not so good, but I try to weave in some stuff of each incarnation. Eight is one of my favs, so that's why the Tardis has his appearance. I know the Tardis is female, but I will address her with the gender she is projecting, so that there is no confusion. Or I talk about copy-doctor. 
> 
> Anything else? Ask questions, I will try to answer them in the comments or via tumblr!


	9. 9_Whose memory is this?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a week you wake up, and hopefully the Tardis will answer some of your questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this is a chapter half bringing further the red line of this fic and also a bit more banter and fun. I tried to explain some questions, that have surely arisen after the last chapter. There are maybe not answers to all your questions, as it would spoil the story, but I explain to you what has happened in the last chapter and also explain what is the difference between Donna and the Reader (as they both have experienced similar) .

Strange dreams haunt you in your sleep and sometimes it is to you as if you have woken, only to realize, that you can do strange things - things you only can do in dreams. Like flying and moving heavy objects and somewhere in your rush of strange memories and unfamiliar faces that invade your dreams, you think, that those are maybe not dreams but a different reality.

It’s only a vague idea, and you can’t concentrate on one thing, as years of information float through you. You sleep for a week, but it feels like drowning for a week and when you finally wake up, you can’t tell where you are, if you have slept or if you simply have starred against the ceiling for seven days.

A glass of water rests on the table aside you and you drink it down greedily. The flow of water seems not to dry up - a glass, that’s bigger on the inside your head tells you. So you drink, till you think it’s already too much and then you drink some more.

Slowly your eyes lose the blur that has inhabited them and the room gets contours again and you start to remember what has happened.

You still can feel the hands of the Tardis on your face and your palms glide over your features as if to make sure you have only slept for a bit and not for years. Your headache is gone - mostly, only a slight pressure in the back of your head, as if someone is holding your neck. The feeling will not go away, like a faint tinnitus, constantly there, but controllable, dimmable with your will.

Later you will understand, that the feeling is all those memories from another person, that has wrapped around your own memories, sinking into you.

Even now you don’t know what has happened completely, you can’t grasp all this yet, you sense very deep inside of you, that with time, your own memories might will mix up with the one of the Doctor and that’s something you not want to have happen.

“Am I still alive?” you mutter into the room, not able to stand up yet, but you know the Tardis is there - you feel it.

“Your heart beats with a constant beat of 72 per minute, your breathing is stable and your body temperature is 36.73 exactly,” you give the information a laugh, and open your eyes, to see the copy-doctor standing in front of you. “Conclusion; you are alive.”

You push yourself up on your elbows, “I could tell you at least three philosophers who would gladly disagree.”

“Which one?”

Dumbfounded you stare at him, you were sure you had three names, only to realize you can’t remember, “How long did I sleep?”

“One week.”

You’re not even shocked anymore and only nod over the information, “My head, there is so much in my head,” now as you are fully awake, you feel slowly how a feeling of panic and fright seeps into your being. How everything, that is in your head, pushes into your conscious, where it had made a home for it since a week and you try with mental force to push all this away.

“If you struggle against it, it will only be painful,” the Tardis explains, sensing your discomfort and your fight.

Standing up, the fear and the panic gets joined by fury, “Do you even know how it feels?”

“In a scientific way, yes.”

“How could you do this? 1600 years of someone else!” a memory pops up. “That has been done before, right?” you raise a hand to tell the hologram to keep quiet, while you follow the muddled string of memories to the one you have detected. “Donna Noble.”

“Yes.”

“Yes? The Doctor erased her mind, he needed to do it, right?” you dig deeper into the vault of your new knowledge. “She would have died if not! You… you killed me!”

“Donna Noble, former companion of the Doctor, had accidental experienced a transfer of the Doctor’s mind and personality. Time Lord DNA had been transferred and so the DoctorDonna had been generated,” you have all this in your head, and still you don’t understand it. “There has been no DNA transferred into you, and you are not inhabiting any personality or parts of the Doctor’s mind in you. There are only memories.”

“I can’t understand you.”

“I gave you the memories, like a film. Not more. Everything that comes with it, the feelings, the emotions, is developed out of your own,” you frown, flinching under an impulse when another part of your brain seems to be taken by the memories. “It’s a bit like reading a book or seeing a movie. It certainly triggers emotions, but there are yours and not the one of the Doctor.”

“You projected like 15 seasons of a TV show into my head,” you yell. “In under 10 seconds! Can you even guess how my head looks at the moment?”

The projection in front of you blinks at you, his head slightly tilted, “No.”

Again you push away some memories, you’re sure there are not yours, not carrying that it hurts. You didn’t ask for this! And that’s the words which you throw at the Tardis.

“It was necessary.”

You are stubborn, and pissed and you not want to hear any excuses, “I am taking a shower!” With that you stomp over to your closet and grab for some random clothes, throwing them over a chair, and then stomp over to another door, that is hopefully the bathroom. It is.

And the copy-doctor follows you. “And what are you planning to do, Mister?”

The Tardis hologram decides not to go with your mood, what bothers you even more. When he doesn’t make a move to leave you alone, you only huff, and yank your shirt over your head and get undressed.

It’s a hologram, you think, it has scanned you and probably knows how you look naked anyway. Also it feels weird and so you quickly close the shower door behind you.

About to turn the tap, you freeze in your motions.

The thing is, you see this motion in front of you. Turning a tap, taking a shower, you have done this a thousand times, and now you remember it, and you are no more sure if you really have taken so much showers or if it is the memory of someone else. It’s not only about taking a shower, it’s about everything.

About the beautiful sunset you have witnessed a week ago and now you are not sure if you really witnessed it, because it mixes up with sunsets that have more than one sun and so it goes on and on. It starts with locations and ends with peoples faces.

“I don’t even know which memories are mine anymore!” your head lands with a soft thud against the stone wall in front of you. The Tardis is so kind and opens the water stream for you. It makes you shudder for a moment till you realize it has perfect temperature.

“This is a side effect and it will pass,” you hear the Tardis say. “Your brain is still sorting out all the new information. It’s in the end 1600 years.”

After that the Tardis keeps quiet and you dare not to ask further questions as the rushing water relaxes you so far, that the voices in your head seem to have silenced. You can’t say how long you stand there, probably twenty minutes and only then you wash your hair and body and feel strong enough to face the copy-doctor once again.

“Alright,” you rip the door open again. “What now? What am I now going to do with all those memories in my head?”

“Two years, six month, 21 days.”

While you reach for a big towel, you try to make sense of it, “What happens then?” guessing it is some sort of countdown.

“Then you will understand,” he gives you one last smile and then the projection vanishes into thin air.

“Oh, really?” you turn around yourself. “This is not fair! You do this to me, and then you don’t tell me? Two years, six month and 21 days? That’s almost an forever.”

The Tardis has left you for the day, and you know she will not come back soon. Whatever game she is playing, you have to deal with it alone, as you fear telling the Doctor about it would make everything even worth. The last thing you want, is him sending you back to earth. There were too many companions already been sent back home. With or without a memory.

“Fine,” you murmur to yourself, and walk over to the door, to get your clothes.

Stepping outside the bathroom, busy tying the big towel around your body, you find yourself suddenly in the control room.

“Hey!” you cry out shocked, your feet still wet, drops building up a puddle where you stand.

“Hey!” the Doctor ducks up from under the console. “Finally you are up!” at least there is a certain cheer over your presence. His hair is askew and he has a few black oily spots in his face. It seems he is busy repairing bits of the Tardis, or maybe he's just bored.

“What is it? You don’t look very happy,” he notices your shocked impression.

You tie the towel tightly in front of your chest, it’s enough the Tardis has seen you naked, “The Tardis obviously has moved my room,” you say dryly, watching the drops hit the console floor.

“Yeah, she does that from time to time,” he pulls on a cable and some sparks fly that makes you both step back. The Doctor only shrugs. “Surely she only wanted to make the way shorter for you,” he smiles fumbling with a normal screwdriver and some gadget now.

For a few seconds you look at him, then you clear your throat over dramatic so he looks up to you, and spread your arms away, like ‘ _look at me’_ , but he seems not to get it.

“I just came from the bathroom. I had a shower. I am tripping wet!”

Now his eyes seem to take in the towel and your wet hair. His furrowed brows get replaced by a wide smile, he points with the screwdriver toward you, “You had a wash! Good. It’s always good to have a wash.”

Rolling your eyes in disbelief over his awareness, you step out of your puddle, “That’s not the point, Doctor. I am stark naked under this!”

“Naughty girl,” he chuckles, and another eruption of sparks emerges from under the console. You can only assume that was an answer and not a short circuit.

“I hope you mean the Tardis, for moving my room,” you say deadpan.

He smiles smug before answering, “Of course I do,” and he pads the console softly.

You see him doing this 1200 years ago, when he was another self. The floppy one. Padding the console, while Clara ran around the corridors, cursing, and searching for her room, “Stop encouraging her!”

The time is over where you think that the Tardis is only a computer without a soul, now knowing what she really is. A living creature, an organism, connected with the Doctor and not completely but partly with you. The Tardis feels you, like she feels the Doctor, but while the Doctor seems to have a deeper connection with his ship, you feel no concious of her in you. A presence, like a six sense, nothing more.

“Anyway, great you are undressed!” he places the mechanics aside, walking up the stairs, and you hope his joy over your nakedness will get an explanation with the next sentence. “I know a planet _exactly_ for this situation.”

That’s maybe not the explanation you wanted to hear, “What situation?” you ask slowly.

“Not having clothes on,” he is about to type in some coordinates, “On Corelian 7, not having clothes on, you can-”

“-No! Don’t!” you stop him. “Don’t even think about taking me there, as long as I am not dressed!”

“We can’t go, when you are dressed!” he whines, disappointed you don’t share his excitement.

“Listen, Doctor, for the future, no planets that start with the sentence “ _When you are not dressed you can…”_ okay?” how many planets could there even be, and what could you do without clothes? Not pushing the subject further in your head, you conclude it is sure a long list. “I am not going naked anywhere - except shower and that only counts for a shower I know.”

“Hmm,” he hums thoughtful, thinking about an alternative. You would allow yourself to get persuaded to visit a nice beach. “What do you think about going to church?”

In your horror over the suggestion to visit a church naked, a memory pops up, unsorted, scattered, “Yes. No! No, naked activities! Got that?”

His hands rattle with the gadgets, “You’re quite boring, aren’t you?”

No one ever has called you a bore, and for a second you want to order him to got to Corelian 7, but then you conclude, that he might tries to manipulate you slightly, “I am not going naked! I mean, would you? I mean look at you, wearing like…,” you bent slightly to get a better sight, measuring him out, “15 layers of clothes,” you hold out your hands, and your towel almost falls down to the ground over your erratic movement.

The Doctor seems to think about it a bit, then jumps up and starts to shove down his coat, “If this is the only reason,” and seems to be ready to strip down.

“No!” you blurt, hearing a hum from the Tardis that can only be called a laughter. “I don’t want to see you naked! Not ever!” you have enough impressions in your head, this is one you want to pass on.

“Fine,” he says sharply and puts his coat back on, rolling his eyes at you, at if you are some sort of prudish. He makes no secret out of it, that he is disappointed. Also you know his childishness will pass and in a minute or two he has forgotten about it.

For a moment you think, what has happened, with the “ _not a hugging type”_ Doctor. The one who is somewhere buried in your head, and then you think you probably not want to know.

“I am going to dress,” you then state. “Pick a planet, where ever you like and whenever, but we don’t go naked, yeah?”

“Okay, on Neptelpigo, in the Icarius Nebula galaxy we could go lava surfing, and then watching the double solar eclipse on Lyra Disocuri. Big event actually. Happens only once in 846 years.”

First you want to insist on not doing the surfing thing, but you have promised him to do everything, as long as you are dressed, and so you only nod, ready to leave, when something gets to you.

“By the way Doctor, didn’t you miss me?”

“Miss you?” unsure how to deal with such pudding brain question what is obviously a trick question, he shifts uncomfortable on the spot. “Why?”

“I slept like… a week?” you stretch the words.

“Oh, yes,” he thinks about it and you know he hasn’t even realized it was a week. “You did.”

“You are telling me, you didn’t wonder, that I was away for a week? I could have been dead!”

He chuckles, “Obviously you are not!” he holds a hand out and moves it slightly. Like presenting a scientific fact.

“I could have been,” you insist.

He makes a smacking sound, “I am not stupid okay, I know you puddings don’t sleep that long usually, but I thought you needed it after the last adventures. The Tardis checked on you. So I knew you weren’t dead at all. Knocked out, but not dead,” he presses some buttons on the console and on of the monitors comes to life. “See! I checked on you.”

You can see a picture of your room and seeing yourself lying in your bed. It’s a recording from the last week. “Wait a minute! You’re stalking me with a video camera or what? You watched me sleep?”

Confused over your reaction, he slams one single button with his finger and the monitor goes black again, “First you are annoyed that I didn’t check on you and now you are annoyed I did. What is wrong with you?”

Somewhere he has a point, you think. It’s still not nice being watched while sleeping. There is a certain creep factor.

“It’s not like you did something sinister there,” he brings back the video, zooming into it to watch you sleep peacefully. “Or do you call this sinister?”

You watch yourself on the monitor and then press the button to end the video, “Probably not. Just promise me, that you don’t do this on regular basis, yeah?”

Unnerved he nods, as if it is too much to promise two things in one day, and then looks at the console. Your wet hair drips water on it, “You are leaking.”

With a groan and a roll with your eyes, you turn around, “I’ll dress myself now, in case no one has any problem with it?” you furrow your brow at the Tardis core, then when there is no hum or word by the Doctor, “Get the surfboards ready!”

The last thing you hear before you walk off to your room, is the lever that is slammed down in joy by the Doctor.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you enjoyed this chapter. I know, the story moves on slowly, at least so it seems. When you wonder or have questions, don't hesitate to point such things out in the comments. I have to admit I totally forgot about Donna and two readers pointed this out, and so I only can tell you, that comments make this story better, as I can change course while writing.  
> So keep commenting. I haven't written the next chapter yet, but it probably will be a bit of insight into the reader and maybe I do a bit of Doctor POV - I can't tell. I have later chapters already planned out but I have to make my way to it.


	10. 10_Time is running ... out

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A recap of your adventures with the Doctor, your thoughts, and the Tardis is still playing a game with you.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay, I had to keep up with sickness and some other writing projects.

You both don’t go lava surfing in the Icarius Nebula galaxy. Not that it is your fault, you had decided on a surfboard already, when the Doctor manoeuvred the Tardis into the middle of a fleet of Sontarans, who were not really pleased to see him.

“Ups,” was everything he said about it and you almost bit into your board over it.

“I am going to kill you!” you yelled over the first impact of laser shots, when you almost fell down the staircase.

“Pull a number!” he yelled back and told you to stop laying around lazy on the floor and to help him fly the Tardis out of the danger zone. “Pull that lever when I tell you!”

“I know!” you said back and regretted it the moment it was out.

You shouldn’t know it, but you did, and you simply shrugged and told him later you have watched him intently, flying this box. “It’s not really a magic trick, is it?”

He had frowned at you, and for a moment you thought he wouldn’t believe you, but then he had shrugged it off. There were more important things in the universe. The double solar eclipse for example.

You both managed to get a glimpse on it, while running down an exploding corridor, chased by a robot like thing, you accidentally awoke out of its cryo sleep while wandering off.

“Don’t wander off!” the Doctor wildly gestured over your head and you were tempted to ask him, when ever someone had ever had not wandered off in the last 2000 years. “Why did you press those buttons anyway?”

“I thought it was a vending machine!” you defended yourself, whirling your arms in the same manner and you both must have look like the weirdest couple.

“A vending machine? Never seen the difference between a cryo sleeping cabin and a vending machine?” he asked, his eyebrows all haywire, while sonicing the door open, that had locked you both in - with the attacker of course.

With all the information in your head, you actually tried to remember if you had ever seen another cryo sleeping cabin, and then it hit you, that you of course never had, “No!”

And so the weeks passed by.

Between banter and him making plans what planets you both could go, only to be interrupted by some scary monster, a civil war or other mischief pulled by some weird looking alien race.

Between running and you falling down into your room sleeping whenever you can, still having headaches from time to time, when new information is rendered by your brain.

Between you trying to convince the Tardis to show up again and being frustrated when she doesn’t.

Since she had planted all those memories into your head, she hasn’t materialized again. No hologram, no words. Nothing. It makes you angry and you find yourself in discussion with yourself and use names you never have heard before. Names of companions, dead long time ago.

You always was one for soliloquies, and now you are one who almost can’t stop, as the voices in your head almost never come to silence. Sometimes the Doctor eyes you suspiciously, but he is too busy repairing the Tardis or manoeuvring you both into an unwanted adventure. That’s your luck, his desperate need to never rest, and you wonder what he does when you sleep.

You try to keep up over the time you already have spent with him, what gets complicated when you travel time and space and seldom know if it is day or night. You guess it must be weeks since he has whisked you away from earth.

One day, it is suspiciously silent. No solar storm, no battle, no monsters, nothing. Just you, the Doctor, together in the control room. He is working at the monitor and you sit on the staircase a book in hand, absently flicking through the pages while you observe him.

For an unknown reason, you know, he knows you are observing and he knows that you knows, but neither of you points it out and so an hour goes by in this awkward behaviour.

You both never had a deeper talk again since the dinner, only banter and something you would consider small talk.

Why is that so, you ask yourself. In the beginning only occasionally, you brush it off, don’t think off it much.

Only when you both landed on a planet - the rare planets where you only got threatened to take part in a very embarrassing ritual for a better harvest (you both performed in the end) - when you both met the people who lived on the planet and the Doctor introduced himself in all the smug manner he always introduced himself, and didn’t made any effort to introduce you.

“Yeah, and I am me,” you mumbled and followed silently, hurt.

There it came to you that something was off between you both. Something you couldn’t place a finger on yet.

The rest of the stay on the planet it was all about him, him barking the orders, him solving the riddle, him saving the day and you were only there watching in awe - at least that seemed to be your job, but you didn’t do it well. Instead you wandered off, watching a beautiful sunset in a set of colours you never had seen before. One of the locals had told you that when you closed your eyes and listened, you could hear a melody while the sun was going down.

Indeed you did, and it was the first time, since you have started travelling with the doctor, that you missed earth.

“Can we visit earth?” you close the book carefully.

“What for?” he is still slamming his fingers into the keyboard, checking the monitor here and there, and some other blinking spots of the console.

Sighing, you place the book aside, “Fish and Chips.”

“Fish and chips?” he frowns and turns around.

“There is no planet in the whole, wide universe, that makes such good fish and chips like Barney’s at Trafalgar,” you explain, slowly standing up, approaching the console and watching the monitor.

For a moment he looks at you, and before you drift off into an expression of total sadness, you make an grimace, “Can we?”

“Sure,” he types in the coordinates, but you stop him, with placing a hand onto his, before he slams down the lever.

The contact doesn’t last long. You both usually never touch, except there is danger in delay and you have to run, you still do this hand in hand, “Do you miss them?”

“Do I miss who?”

“Your old companions,” you say and step away from him, looking up to the rotating console, with all the inscribed plates, that circle around the centre. First you thought, it meant nothing, only pictures, then you figured what Gallifreyan language looked like - thanks to the Tardis - and you figured, those are not diagrams, not warning signs, but names. Companion names.

Before he slowly pulls down the lever, he gives you this look again, full with emotions and as if he will shed a tear any second, but then a jolt goes through him and he laughs it off, “Sometimes.” You detect the lie, but what could you say. “So fish and chips it is.”

As he has no money, only credits, you tell him you will buy and fetch. There is a hesitation when you step outside, right into the busy mall. Your hand still on the door you turn around once more, watching the Doctor pacing toward the other door, “Hey where are you going?”

“Getting plates!” he stops and looks at you, smiling. “What else?”

“Oh,” you chuckle nervously. “You don’t take off, just like that?”

“No, of course not,” you see his eyes twitch to the top of the console, to the names. What is this promise worth, when it got broken way too often?

You decide, you only can hope he will be still here, when you return. You can’t tug him under your arm or chain him to your left wrist, and you feel the warm vibration, like a soothing under your hand, and you nod, and then you are off.

Twenty minutes later you return, finding the Tardis still there, and you let out a long exhalation, and feel stupid for your worries. Trust issues, they perhaps never go away.

“Wanna have a sight, while eating?” he asks with a grin, and the moment you nod, knowing something worth will come out of it, he brings the Tardis into the orbit of the earth and so you both enjoy fish and chips sitting at the Tardis porch, watching the earth rotate under your feet.

Did he know, you missed earth? You don’t ask, “Thanks.”

“For the sight? Ah, there is a bit of selfishness involved,” he mumbles under a mouth full of chips. “I always liked the view, and also Kate asked me to check on some satellites. I kill two birds with one stone.”

“Ah,” you smile into your box of food. Not that you ever had hoped for some other motivation to bring you here. “You are quite a genius of organisation, aren’t you?”

“I am brilliant, I know,” he shoves another hand of chips into his mouth, and you wonder when it was the last time he has eaten something.

The rest of your dinner happens in silence, at least in your head, where the voices have calmed down for the day. The Doctor babbles something about some extra spices his fish could use, and goes on about some planets with the rarest spices in the whole universe. Aside you don’t listen, you are able to sprinkle “ah’s”, “mh’s” and “really?” into the one sided conversation.

The International Space Station races past you under the blue box, and for a moment your face lights up, and you raise a hand, as if they could see you from there, then the station is gone as quickly as it has came by.

The earth is beautiful, not that you miss your life, you have already, after this few weeks, or month forgotten, what it was like. Also a home is a home, and earth is your home, and it’s still the place where your heart lies. And for a moment you feel like a stranger at the most beautiful place in the universe.

You both finish your plates, and the Doctor sets a new course, while you “ _volunteer_ ” to make the dishes, “I meant for the chips. Not the view.”

“Mh?”

“I didn’t thank you for the view - what was nice to have of course,” you nod slowly, your fingers sticky and greasy. When the Doctor says nothing, you vanish toward the kitchen. Glad the Tardis does not move rooms all the time, you find it quickly. There is already water in the sink.

“Why don’t you show up again?” you place the plates into the water, the warmth tingling at the tips of your fingers. For a minute you listen into the silence, the warm water around your hands. “For Christ sake!”

There is a faint hum in the room, but no projection.

“Two years, six month, 21 days,” you say into the silence of the kitchen. “You _owe_ me. an. answer!” suddenly you are angry and you are raging and grab for a mug that stays aside from you on the counter and throw it against the wall. It bursts into pieces. You could bet, the mug wasn’t there before.

“Do you think that?” Finally.

“Yes, I think that,” you feel guilty for the mug. “You play games with me, and you have done a horrible thing to me, and I still don’t know why.”

“It’s not that horrible, I think. You feel well, and your physical fitness has increased since we have seen each other the last time,” the copy-doctor says emotionless.

“That’s the running,” you say almost defending. “That’s not the point! Why did you do it?”

“You will find out, very soon.”

“You are just a cryptic magic box! Because all I hear is na-na-na!”

“I am very sure the translation matrix works as good for you as for everybody else.”

You need another mug.

“I hate you!”

“No, you don’t.”

You roll your eyes, “And how do you know that? Measuring my stress level or something?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, just…,” you don’t know what to say, where to go with your emotions. “You and the Doctor, you are both… unbelievable! You both treat me like I am some sort of thing. He doesn’t see me, and you seem to shove me around like a figure on a chessboard.”

When the Tardis keeps quiet you start first to laugh in disbelief and then you hit your flat hand against your head, almost in joy, “That’s it, isn’t it? I am a tactical device for you!” you raise a hand, you not really want to hear the truth. “All of time and space, and I have it in my head. What for? All those memories. On some I can’t even look at!”

You have approached the copy-doctor and stand almost nose to nose, so close you are. It’s the familiar eighth Doctor, his memories are in your head too and you want to yell some of his companions at him, only to see how he will react. Then you remember it’s just a machine, it’s not real. The one who should be accused, is planning the next trip to almost dead right now, you figure.

“You are so good with this projection,” you step slightly back, hands on your hip, sad feelings everywhere in your body. “But you know what you will never be able to reproduce?” you wait, you want him to ask.

“The eyes.”

You have underestimated the Tardis, “Exactly. Your eyes are… a sea of nothingness, while his are a storm of emotion.”

Rubbing your forehead, you turn around, ready to leave, “I am not going to play your game! I refuse! Have you heard?” you find the projection gone again. “I. refuse!”

There will come a time, you will realize, that one can’t refuse one's destiny. There will be a time, you'll learn, that time indeed can’t be rewritten.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So this chapter was a recap of your days with the Doctor. This fic is not here, to explain all the adventures in detail, and is more about you and the Doctor and the thing the Tardis has planned for you. It's all character study and banter, I would say. I hope you still enjoy this. I promise in one to two chapters things will happen, that explain why the Tardis had done what she has done.


	11. 11_Rule number one

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You wanted to go to earth, but the Tardis brings you and the Doctor to a planet on the brink of war. Not only the planet is on the brink, also your relationship with the Doctor seems to get more... complicated.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the turning point chapter I promised (somewhere). All the planet and alien names I made up with using a alien name generator. I hope the story I pulled literally out of the hat here is at least a bit reasonable and not that stupid. Also a lot I leave to the imagination of the reader.  
> I came up with a name for the Reader, as I needed her to be addressed in this and later chapters, but you will see it is a name everyone can carry, so it's still YOU there.

It must be another month that has passed by, when the Doctor offers you to go to a place and time of your liking.

“Really?” you ask in happy anticipation. You always had hoped for such offer, and never had found the guts to ask him if they could do a trip like this.

“Yes,” he turns toward you, a huge smile on his face. “I think after all I put you through,... you… you deserve it.”

“I deserve it?” you sense a trap where none can be, but your time with the Doctor is since the beginning characterized by uncertainty.

It keeps you on the edge all the time, even when you are sleeping. Since a while you have found signs at yourself that this lifestyle is maybe a bit too much for you. Your hands shake from time to time, and you started to sleep restless, what also could be your head and all the info there is in it. What ever it is, you feel the effects of a restless life. Hurrying from one death threat to another.

Having all the knowledge about previous companions, you know it is always a hectic life, but you can’t remember him taking you to a nice place, just for the view. Of course, that it is what he sometimes tells you, but you got suspicious, that he might only says it so you will come with him.

In the end, you both run down corridors, fight Daleks and Cybermen and what not. Then the Doctor promises you another planet, better, not so threatening, and it never happens. The only thing that happens is another adventure, more dangerous as before.

There is no time-out for you, and when you think, you want to tell him, he should take you back to earth for a week, you sense he will not come back, so you don’t ask. You tell yourself it is you, your human being, to weak for this lifestyle, and you should get yourself a grip.

You will travel with him, even if it costs you your health. Or life.

“Yes, you do!” he only announces without elaborating on it. “So where do you want to go?”

You dwell on the spot, nervously. It’s nothing big you want to do. “Earth. 17th century. France. Paris,” you sputter out.

The Doctor gives you a quizzical look, trying to come up with what you want to see, and then shrugs and turns toward the console and types in the coordinates, “What’s there?”

“You don’t know?” you come around the other side of the console. “The Musketeers! Dumas!”

“Oh, really? They are all just fiction!” he stops typing and you worry he will deny you the request.

“That’s what you said about Robin Hood, too,” you say carelessly.

It makes him step to the left, and instinctively you step to the other side. You know you made a blunder with this information.

“How do you know that?”

“Ahm,” you look up the console, as if an answer is written there. “You must told me. How else should I know? Yes, you told me, a while back.”

He gives you a scowl of his, and then lets it go, “Only because Robin Hood was real, doesn’t mean the Musketeers were real too.”

“Oh, come on, lets just find out!” you always wanted to see the Musketeers, and most of all you always wanted to get dressed into the gear of an musketeer. “I mean, Arthos, Porthos, Aramis and D'artagnan, they must be real. I know, at least this other guy, he was real!”

“Who?”

“This man, from the cloth! This Bishop, or something,” you try to remember the name, but you fear you will title him the name of a long lost companion instead, and keep quiet. “I forgot. We found out.”

“Fine,” he finishes typing the coordinates. “Go get dressed!”

You can’t suppress a cheering squeal and hurry down the corridor to the wardrobe of the Tardis. You assume, you both will end up in the dungeon or god know where, but it’s earth and that’s still home, and you can wear nice leather clothes and a fancy coat.

When you return back to the console room, you wear leather boots, tight pants, a shirt with a leather jacket that would be - when bought in the mall - worth a couple hundred quits. It’s all in dark brown, except for the long coat, what is in a dark blue. And you even found a matching sword that completes your look, “Oh, Doctor, this is so cool! I think I never will wear something else as this!”

The Doctor whirls around the console, pushing buttons, and ripping the monitors around with him. Something is up, you sense it.

“Doctor?”

“Mh?” he glances up to you. “What the hell are you wearing?”

“What do you…? Oh, no, come on! Just twenty minutes ago you promised me France, Paris, 17th century,” you whine and point into the direction of where you just came from.

“Have I?” he has went back to the console, and then the landing sound erupts through the room. “I forgot about it.”

“You forgot?” the Doctor is too busy to hear the disappointment in your voice. “So are we at least on earth?”

He stops swirling around, and faces you with a stern expression, “No. We are half a galaxy away from it. It’s about 304235ish, and I don’t know why, but we are here. Tardis brought us here for some reason.”

You groan, “Yeah, it’s always the Tardis, mh?” Sometimes you want to kick the console but you always hold back, instead you give it a short patting, and do what you always do, when you both have landed on a foreign planet.

You walk to the door, place your flat hand onto the surface, listening to the gentle hum of the ship, the soft vibration that goes through your body, and pull the door open.

“What do you see?” you hear the Doctor ask, and ask yourself, for what are all those monitors good.

“Not much, a room,” you step forward, finding a door out of the room that looks like a place of living. It’s too dim to see enough. “Wait,” you open the wide door and find a corridor. Looking left and right you see nothing but some flickering lights, and a sterile corridor. This could be a hospital or an office building you can’t tell. There are no windows.

“Looks empty,” the Doctor approaches you from behind and you make a jump, holding your hand over your heart.

“Could you stop doing this every time?”

“When I do it, every time, why are you still so jumpy?” his logic makes you speechless. “Something is strange. Not right. I can feel it. Come on, we should go investigate,” he steps forward and your sword gets tangled up in his legs and he almost falls. “You might want to get rid of this before we move on?”

“I might, but you never came to the conclusion it would be better when we would carry a weapon with us around, at least once in a while?” you don’t even know, why you never had this idea before.

“We have the sonic!” he points toward the Tardis with one hand, and pats the spot of his jacket where he carries the sonic with him, no objection allowed.

“You mean,” you walk back, “ _you_ have the sonic and it’s not really a weapon. Except we would go visit the Ikea-Space-Station.” Rolling your eyes, you quickly bolt through the door, lose the strap of your sword and throw it carelessly into the room, when you catch a sight of something, you haven’t seen for a while. The copy-doctor, the Tardis hologram.

“You!” your sword has landed directly in front of him. “What do you want? Telling me at least once why you brought us again somewhere else instead back to earth? Would be a first!” you can’t hold back the reluctance you have developed in the last few month for the hologram.

The copy-doctor keeps quiet only looks at you, and for a moment you believe he looks sad. Then you decide it’s just its impossibility to copy a decent expression as a machine.

You hear the Doctor call out for you, “Miller-Smith!” you roll your eyes over it.

Since a while he has found it funny to call you this, in remark of your first meeting, when you refused to tell him your last name.

“I got to go!” you make a motion with your chin toward the hologram, and when you are almost gone again you hear him say;

“I am sorry.”

You stop in your track, turning around, eyeing him, questioning his behaviour. “What fo..,” it’s just a trick, once again, you think. “Whatever.”

You head out and come back to the corridor, not seeing the Doctor anywhere, “How about don’t wander off?” and then you decide for going right and when you have reached the end of the corridor a door opens and there you find the Doctor. Surrounded by strangers, and how else could it be, holding up weapons. You are so used to the sight of such situation, that you don’t even feel your heart rate pick up. “Doctor!”

The group around him turns with him, and you make your way toward him, not minding that you bring yourself also in danger. The man is the driver, so you need him.

“Ah, Millers-Smith, right in time, I was worried you miss the… warm welcoming, of our new friends here!”

You glance around. They don’t look like friends. They all look like soldiers, not very spacey, but surely a bit futuristic. They look like humans, some look slightly aliens, but most of them look like you and the Doctor, what doesn’t mean they are related to earth.

“Hi!” you make an awkward wave with your hand. “I hope you didn’t let him talk yet, because he talks the most nonsense I have ever heard!”

“Excuse me?” the Doctor turns toward you. “If this is a tactic to save us, I am not sure if I can agree on it.”

“Because you have ever agreed on anything I have suggested! You didn’t even wait for me!”

“You found me? You always do, so where is the problem?”

“The problem is…,” you raise one finger in anger, swapping your cape over your shoulders in a way that is even too dramatic for your liking. You are angry, and you don’t care that a dozen people stand around you and threaten you with something that looks like guns. “That I am not-”

“-Hey!” a third party invades your talk. “Could you stop fighting for a moment, and tell us who you guys are?”

The Doctor and you exchange a glare, before turning to the man who has spoken up. “I am the Doctor.”

“Oh, don’t make the mistake of introducing _me_!” you snap. “I am… Miller-Smith.”

The man walks up to you both and eyes first the Doctor and then you. “I am Elderek, and allow me the remark, but you look like going to a costume party,” his hand tugs at your coat.

“Actually,” you begin, “that was some sort of the plan, till somebody decided otherwise!” you turn to the Doctor.

“It was not me, it was the Tardis!” he growls back.

“Tardis?” the man asks. “What’s that?”

“It’s my ship. We are travellers, just arrived,” the Doctor explains.

“What for?” he asks puzzled. “How the hell did you even come here?”

“It’s a long story,” you say, because it is always what you say. “Where are we?”

Elderek chuckles, “What? You don’t know? You don’t know in what town you are?”

“More,” the Doctor distorts his mouth, “we don’t know which planet we are.”

“Luminar Six, in the star constellation of Terebor,” he explains. “We’re called Dilgarians. Where are you from?”

“Earth,” you step forward, knowing the Doctor will not talk about Gallifrey. “In the constellation of… actually I don’t know. Probably somewhere between Gemini and the Great Bear.” You earn a quizzical look from the man and from the Doctor. “Sorry, I never had astrophysics in school.”

“It’s not astrophysics!” the Doctor groans.

You are about to get back to the argument you both have started when the man interrupts again. “I don’t know where that is, sounds far away,” he seems to decide you both are no threat, just a bickering couple, and makes his soldiers to take down the weapons. “Anyway, you are the first visitors from another planet since a decade.”

The Doctor frowns, anticipating no good news, “Why is that so?”

“Haven’t you heard? Everybody in the sector knows,” he sniffs, looking nervously down his watch. “Nobody comes here of own will.”

“What?” you press. “What is it?” You remember it was not your own will either.

“We are on the brink of a global war. Since years. A civil war. Between us and our leading scientist,” he explains.

You gulp, you have heard a lot of stories, but people in war with their scientists, “Why? What for?”

“It’s a long story,” Elderek says with a smirk, and motions his man and both of you with him. “I better show you.”

Elderek guides you through a couple of doors till you reach a room with many monitors, “Bring up the surface!” he commands to some people sitting in front of some control panels. Himself steps up to another panel and types in some commands. On the monitor in front flickers a picture to life of a beautiful and colourful planet. “That is a picture of Luminar before the incident.”

“What incident?” your eyes flicker to the other monitors, seeing a surface that doesn’t really look like the picture in front of you. It looks dark and deserted.

“Our planet always had some issues, the planet's rotation, to be exact. Our day was like 46.5 hours long, and our scientists calculated that the rotation would get slower and slower,” Elderek began to explain, bringing up some stats and animated pictures of the planet’s rotation. “Also, there was still time. About 200 years, but they decided they want to make an experiment. To increase the rotation again.”

“To increase the rotation?” you ask astonished. “How… how is this even possible? Doctor?” You turn toward him knowing, that he will probably know.

“Sending a gamma ray into the core, changing the atoms, changing the heat of the core, _can_ make the rotation faster,” he explains, and Elderek nods. “It’s highly dangerous and the chance of a success is way too small.”

“Yes, that was the main opinion of the population. We voted against it, but the government and the scientists did it anyway,” the man, somewhere in his forties pressed a button and the picture of the beautiful planet got replaced by a picture of a planet, that looked like torn in two. “They stopped the planet's rotation.”

“That’s it!” the Doctor bursts out. “Stupid me!” he clasped his hands around his head. “The missing rotation, I can feel it!” then bad thoughts sink in. “How long is that so?”

“Years.”

“Wait a minute, you say, this planet has no rotation?” Even you realized what that can mean for a planet. “So one side is facing the sun, all the time. What’s with your people there?”

“Many people died. Half the planet is an atomic desert already. No one can live there. The other side is freezing cold. Most people life near the separation, mostly under the surface. Water and food is dying out, but we work on new ways of providing food and water for us, that is not the main issue. The issue is, we are at war, fighting over the last scientific buildings. We have people who think, they can start the rotation again, but for that we need to conquer seven stations around the globe.”

“Let me guess,” the Doctor turns around, unable to face the misery any longer. “You people fight over it so long, that there is no back and forth for years now. Why don’t you work together?”

Elderek lowers his face to the ground, knowing what the Doctor wants to tell him. That they behave childish, that they destroy the planet with the war.

“We tried, but this feud is burned into the minds of people. Families died because of those,” he points to the monitors, meaning the government and all. “Most of them, don’t want to even think about them, let alone work together. It’s not a real war, it’s a quarrel of whose fault it is in the end. They are like kids. My people and I try to look beyond it. We have contact to some people from the other side, to the underground. We try to work out a plan, but it’s hard. We don’t have ships or planes. Getting to the stations means a long journey over the surface, and we have lost so many already.”

You step up to the Doctor, “Can’t we help?” you ask in a whisper.

“Help?”

“Yes, with the Tardis, we could help them,” you know the Tardis could be at any station in seconds. “We could bring them there, and they can start the rotation again.”

He grabs your arm and brings you to a corner of the room, “Do you really think, it is that easy? Like that,” he snaps with his fingers, ”you start the rotation again. It’s not a button you press, it’s a scientific challenge, you need to know what to do. What frequency the gamma ray needs to have. And to know that, you … you actually need to know, with what speed the planet rotated when it was born.”

“Well…,” you look at him. “So we can help.”

The Doctor reads your mind. It would be an easy test for the Tardis to travel back in time to the planets birth, scanning the core, and coming back and help the people. “If we are wrong, this planet maybe breaks in two! Aside…, it is not our fight!”

“Then lets make it our fight!” you whisper firm.

The Doctor is torn between your request, the idea of helping and his education as a Time Lord, not to interfere with time. “This is maybe a fixed point in time!”

“Maybe? You don’t know?”

“I have to go back to the Tardis, check the time line. I need to see the beginning of this planet, do some research. If we decide to help, and something goes not as planned by time, we can destroy the web of time in this sector.”

“Doctor? You are said you are not sure, you said maybe,” you plea. “We always run, we never stay, we never really help. Not in such a big thing. We can save millions!”

“Don’t you understand?”

“I do, believe me I do!” you almost spill to him, what you all have in your head. And because of all this, you know it is no good to try to convince him, because with your actions you might save one ace only to kill another. “You are the Doctor, aren’t you? What is your name worth, if you can’t help them?” you know one day you will regret those words.

He turns away from you, looking over to Elderek, who has half listened to your talks, knowing that you both could help, and you think if you don’t there is a chance he might will raise his weapons against you, to make you help.

“Alright!” the Doctor spins around.

“Alright?” you give him a puzzled look. “You gonna help?”

“I gonna research, I go back to the Tardis, and find the frequency,” he turns to Elderek and his man. “That is all I can promise at the moment.”

“Really?” you start smiling about to run up to him and hug him.

“Stop it!” he warns you, and you hold yourself back. “It’s a try. I can’t promise anything. You stay here, I’ll be back in five minutes!” with that he turns around and hurries down the corridor you both came from.

You quickly follow, “Doctor!” he stops, turning around to you. “Thank you!”

“Thank me later!” he call back. “Five minutes!”

You nod, relieved that there is a hope to save the planet and the people. With an hopeful smile you turn around to the monitors, seeing all the deserted ground, imagine how the planet must have looked like before. The people, the families. And now people have died and still die because of a stupid war.

Suddenly you begin to frown, “Five minutes,” you whisper and a thought pops up in your head. “What? Five… minutes?” No. You have heard this promise once before or even twice. It’s always five minutes, you think, and turn around and run down the corridor. “Doctor!”

You already can hear the vanishing sound of the Tardis, and when you reach the room, where the Doctor had parked earlier, you see the last faint reflection of the Tardis faint away, “Doctor! No! Come back!”

The Tardis is gone and with her the Doctor, and like a tsunami realization hits you. You’ve been abandoned. Pacing in panic around over the spot where the Tardis had been, you call out the Doctor’s name over and over again. Heavy breathing and your heart beating hard and fast makes you almost dizzy and you are about to faint. With a desperate outcry you drop to the floor.

And when five minutes have past and have become an hour, you don’t know what to do, you don’t know where to go, and what to think.

Elderek finds you, laying on the floor and speaks to you, but you don’t understand him, because the Tardis is gone, and nothing is translating for you.

You’ve been abandoned, 300 000 years and half a galaxy away from home. Five minutes, he has said, you think.

Rule number one.

The Doctor lies.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have to say, I will leave you hanging there for a bit. I go on a trip next week and mid August I go camping, so I try to update once more before leaving, but can't promise anything, as I have a few stories to do.  
> Leave a comment if you like, I would love to see your insight!  
> Thanks for reading and hope this chapter was (the side story) not too stupid.


	12. 12_When all hope is lost, there is one sound that brings it back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor has abandoned you. And when he returns, many things have happened and changed. You have gone through much, and while it is only an hour for the Doctor, it's a while for you. What now? What's with the planet? Will you both find back together?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is a longer chapter, as I had to explain a lot and a lot is going on. It's not only a hopeful chapter it is also a dark chapter. Things will change between the Doctor and the reader. As promised, this story is not only fun and banter, it's also a little drama.

You never had nightmares before. Well, except one or two where you dreamed your roof was about to collapse, through a storm. The remembrance of it makes you smile even more, as you remember that you never have jumped more quicker out of bed on any other occasion.

Now the nightmares are different. They are real. They happen over the day and you take them into the night with you.

There are times you sit in front of the monitors, staring at them for hours. The deserted land. Sometimes, on days when you still have hope, just a tiny bit of hope, you switch to the archive. Looking at the planet - Luminar XI - as it once looked. It absolutely doesn’t look like earth, but you have a good imagination. Also it nothing you really need, because there are all those memories in your head. 1600 years of happenings and words and moments.

They let you, the Delgarians and Elderek, after all they have put you through, they let you do whatever you want, knowing, you only had them as significant other, and that you would return to them after your daily time of moping and grieving. They had found a way to built a translation unit, for communication, and you also had picked up on learning the language and after a while you became good in it.

To avoid the nightmares, you sleep only when necessary, the rest of your time you spent in your room - the same room the Tardis once had landed and once has taken off - without you. You had demanded to get the room - just in case.

You had given up, and maybe that it was, what brought him back. Because you were at the deepest point in your life. Because the sound of the machine brings hope to all. Even to you, after all this time. Wheezing and Humming.

It’s night and dark, and there is only the dim light of the Tardis that shimmers through the room. When the door opens, the glow from the insight, is barely touching the top of your shoes.

“So this was more complicated as I thought it would be,” the Doctor paces out of the Tardis, swirling, full of energy. “Also you can be proud of me, I managed!” He holds up the screwdriver, its tip glowing, and he smiles when he comes to an halt in front of you. Squinting with his eyes, as you stand in the shadows.

“Really?” you creak, a lump building up in your throat.

“Yes! I told you I try, and I did! I got the frequency!” his smile becomes a grin. “Come on!” he turns around and wants to leave, when something stops him. It’s not you, it’s something else. A feeling.

“We are moving,” he then utters, turning slowly to you, a frown on his face, almost a scowl. “I can feel it. We are moving. The planet is moving. Very, very slowly.”

“Yes,” you whisper, aware he can’t see you, but hear you and to avoid a sobbing you press your hand against your mouth and nose.

“But…,” he is so smart, you think. And still he needs so long to understand. “Why are you hiding?”

Taking a deep breath, you decide you have to face your personal nightmare. The one you have since you have been abandoned. The one of the Doctor, picking you up again, before turning into a monster to eat you. You know it’s not a dream anymore, and you know the Doctor will likely not turn into a monster. And if, you have learned to kill.

When the light hits your face, the Doctor takes you in. Your hair has grown out, and - it’s nothing what he really sees - you have aged slightly too.

“You changed clothes,” he comments, seeing you in the same uniform Elderek and the others used to wear. It’s used and worn down. You know you should have asked for a new set long ago.

“Oh,” the Doctor says. He knows. He knows it has taken him a bit longer than five minutes to return. “How long? How long I am overdue again?” there is a try of being funny.

Being late, a flaw he thinks he can make fun of it, even after over 2000 years.

You want to smack him in the face, for the laugh he gives it. Oh, you will get your closure, you will take care of it.

“Two hours,” you can’t hold back the sarcastic huff.

“Two hours?” he is not a good participant for human humour, and cynicism. “That is obviously a lie.”

“Yeah,” you step closer. “Two weeks, then? Ha! No, no, no! How does two month sound to you?”

He never was really comfortable around you when you were angry, and he winces under your bossy tone, “Oh, ah, you know I have a bad timing. And the Tardis seems still to have trouble with the time calculation unit. I am sure you could manage,” he underlines his words with a shrug of his left shoulder and a 360 degree turn-around to take in the room. “Come on, two month! That’s nothing. Once I-”

“- I know,” the story of Rose. “Or did you mean Amy Pond? Mh. God, I’m glad I lay in between, also you made it good again with Amy. Telling the little girl that everything would be good again, and she hadn’t had to wait on a deserted planet, with no home and friends, for … for two years.”

“What?” he comes to halt again, so abrupt you fear he will fall over. You can see he can’t process everything you said.

“It’s been almost two years, since you… you left me here,” you state the truth.

The Doctor stares at you, not sure if you play a cruel joke or if it really is so, and he quickly decides it must be so, even it was indeed not longer as an hour for him.

“Are you sure?”

There were you stand, a good gap between you and him, you take him in, let your eyes wander over his appearance. His coat and the red lining you can slightly see. The magician who came too late.

The worst is, you have missed him since the moment the Tardis had vanished. Dearly. You have missed him every day, and every second of your being. He never was off your consciousness, always there. Like a persistent scratch on a negative image of a photo. Once there it can hardly be removed. Only with a special trick - one you never found out.

“Are you sure?” he asks again, this time in distress, as if you would take those two years and make eight out of them.

Finally moving, you pass him, and reach into the drawer of a desk, and pull out a notebook. It’s a diary, you hold it out to him, “Affirmative.”

He winces again by the hearing of the word, and reaches for the book. Black leather, used. The Doctor is torn between only flicking through the pages and stopping to read in it. He decides for only brief glances.

_Day 1. I am abandoned. ..._

_Day 34. There is still hope. ..._

_Day 103. I wake up at night, hearing the Tardis. It’s an illusion. ..._

_Day 356. I want to die. ..._

And so on, and so on. And somewhere between day 435 and today, you had stopped writing. It’s just Day 467. Day 468. Day 469. No entry below. You only felt the need to keep track.

After you had thought of killing yourself very hard for two month you had no more energy left to fill the pages with your sorrow.

“Two years,” he gives you the book back and you place it back into the drawer. “Miller-Sm-”

“-It’s not my name!” you yell. “I have a name, have you forgotten?”

“Of course not.”

“Are you sure? You are forgetful,” you laugh weary. “How about your own name?”

“The Doctor.”

“No,” you stare him dead in the eye. “The one you got with your birth. The one I yelled in despair, when the Tardis had vanished.” You say his name, his real Gallifreyan name. The one that is in your head.

Hearing it makes him step back, it must be centuries since he had heard it from someone else's lips. “How?”

“I think you know, Doctor,” you are calm again, at ease. “I think you figured it out long ago.” Suddenly you wince, and sit down on the bed, one hand caressing your side, as if there is a sore and the Doctor observes you doing it, and you can see he wants to ask what it is, but he knows he needs to answer your comment first.

Nodding he takes a chair and places it in front of you, “I think I have. Yes.”

Your hands still shake, you note. Your lifestyle has never really changed in his absence. You both lock eyes and in a silent agreement you start to tell your story. “The Tardis gave me all those memories of yours. Of _all_ of you.”

“I figured. All the odd comments made me suspicious. When I saw in the files, that she had scanned you, I knew something was up with her,” he gives the blue box a side look. “Also I never could make her tell me why she had done it. I still can’t tell you why.”

“Because of this, I think,” you go on, in a whisper. “Two years on this planet, there is not much one can rely on, when having no connection. The Tardis gave me 1600 years of memory, so I would survive the emptiness. I had all those memories I could retreat too. I lived a shadow life, while fighting a war that isn’t mine.”

Again you wince, feeling a pain in your side, and now the Doctor reaches out to you, not touching, but dangerously close, “What is it?”

“They made me fight for their reasons, they made me go behind the lines,” you stand up and open the jacket you are wearing. “They caught me. A splinter group - at least I think it was one,” then you shove the jumper over your head and finally you raise your shirt, revealing wounds of war. Wounds of torture. “To make you talk, they whip you,” you laugh, as you found it, the moment it happened, funny. Ancient somehow.

Turning your back on him, so he can see the deep marks the blows have left, you can hear him hiss over what he sees. “Why?”

“They thought I had information, and at this time I had,” you shrug, and let your shirt fall back in place. “I made it till blow number...12,” you give an emotionless smile, “till I told them everything. Somehow I got out. It’s been a year since then. One is very deep, and it hurts. Never received the proper medical attention.”

“I am sorry,” he adds your name.

“No, you are not,” you have never been more serious. “You never are!” Your breath goes now harder and faster, and you finally - after the first shock over his return is gone - find a way to unleash the anger inside of you. “You are a monster! The monster in my dreams, and the monster in real life!”

“You shouldn’t say that,” he stands up, raising his hands, in order to try to calm you down.

“I am telling you my story, not this one, but another one, the one of you and me. When you were present,” you bite your lips hard over an evil smile you give him. “I think you were testing me. From the beginning. You remember this first planet you brought us? The one with the shape-shifting, telepathic aliens, that fed from our fear?

“First of all; I think you knew we were 10000 ft over the ground, when you let me step outside the Tardis. You tested me, my believes in you. And you knew what would await us on the surface. Which horror.

“First you tested my courage, then you tested my will or whatever. And you never stopped doing it. It didn’t matter how courageous I was, you always pushed, and never gave me time to breath.

“You let me compete against the past of yours, without knowing me. Like Martha. Your tenth incarnation, still grieving for Rose, she hadn’t have a chance, right? Or Clara, didn’t she call Amy a ghost?”

“That’s not…,” but obviously he can’t be sure. “You shouldn’t have all those memories in you! I didn’t allow it! I should erase your memory!” he snaps then, fierce - the time lord victorious suddenly back on display.

“Yeah?” you call out, stepping up to him, not fearing him anymore, like you have done in the beginning. He towers over you, not backing away, also not moving and so you reach into the inside of his pockets, and then grabbing his hand and place the sonic screwdriver into his hands, “Do it then? Wouldn’t be the first time, would it?”

“Then you know, I don’t need the sonic for it.”

You take the sonic away and hurl it down onto the floor. Something cracks. Then you grab his hands and press them against your temples, “Go on! Do me a favour! Make me forget. Make me forget the monster that comes to me late at night, eating my soul.”

For a few seconds his hands come tight around your head. His mimic tells his inner battle, and then he rips his hands away and steps away from you.

“The thing is, if the Tardis hadn’t given me all the information, I would have known nothing about you! Except you are an alien, some sort of Time Lord and you are from Gallifrey, what is _not_ in Ireland! I would have know nothing more.”

“You could have always asked!”

“I tried - you snapped at me! You ignored me sometimes for days - did you even notice?” you bent slightly searching an emotion in his eyes.

“On one side you wanted that I am courageous, interested, fearless and ask questions. About the planets we are, the people we meet. You wanted me to be curious and still denied me ‘ _you’_!

“After 2000 years, haven’t you learned anything about those _pudding_ brains you travel with? Or is it just me, you gave a damn about?” Of course you know the answer, and still you could be wrong.

“That’s not true!”

“Oh, yes it is! Can’t you see? I only wanted a friend, but for that I needed to know you. I expected a little trust here. Some liking. You never even attempted of giving in. You didn’t even give me a key.”

You don’t know he is wearing a spare key in his pockets, since forever. Never found the time to give it to you. “When you are so disappointed, you should have stopped travelling with me or you shouldn’t have come with me in the first place.”

“You invited me, you wanted me to come, as much as I wanted to come with you! Don’t treat me now like I was a stray cat - accidentally walking inside your Tardis. Don’t blame this on me only!” you lean forward, feeling your wounds burn, as the skin has healed sketchy. “It’s an addiction, how can one stop travelling with you? And you know it. You knew I wouldn’t come to you, telling you to take me back. To what?” your voice pitches high. “There is nothing I have. No friends. No parents. Nothing. You knew. There is responsibility when you take one of us with you. You have to look out for us,” you had this conversation so often, alone, against a mirror. You had hoped, when you would say it to him one day in real life, you would feel better. You don’t.

“You can waste your years as you have so many of them, but you have _no_ right to waste mine.”

Silence spreads through the room. The Doctor doesn’t know what to say, or thinks it will not help in any way and only wanders slowly around in the room. The Tardis stands in the background. You can feel a soft vibration in the air, perhaps a sorry. She knew from the beginning.

“Why don’t you step back into the box and…,” you know it’s not possible. “And pick me up, two years ago?”

“Time Paradox,” he only says. “I think you… Time can’t be....”

“... be rewritten,” you say almost in a whisper. “The Tardis knew, and I want to know why. Why needed I to stay here? What is the reason?”

“That is actually, a good question,” he turns to the box and stops before he enters. “Wanna take a look?”

Slowly you approach the box. The Doctor steps aside and lets you enter. You stop by the point you had stopped when you had entered the very first time, your hand on the rail, “You haven’t redecorated,” you joke.

“Should I? What do you think?” he stands aside you, glancing down at you. You shake your head. “Good. Then lets see, what history is telling me… us.”

There a tremor goes through the ship, hard enough to make you both reach for each other. After a few seconds it is gone again.

“It happens from time to time, since the rotation has started again,” you explain to a questioning looking Doctor. “It is obviously connected.”

He cocks an eyebrow, a worried face and goes to the monitors and calls up the file about the planet. You watch him from the other side, sitting down into the chair of his. It’s been so long and still you remember the smooth leather, how it always felt under your hands, when you had sat down, watching him repairing something in the Tardis. When silence was roaring between you and him. None of you able to jump the barrier between you. Like a pair deeply in love - unable to confess. Your friendship built on misunderstandings, guilt and grieving memories of long lost friends and lovers.

The Doctor reads for a few minutes, and you can hear him hum and see him ruffle his hair. Something is bothering him.

“What is it?”

“Tell me more, tell me what you did, since you are on this planet?”

“Uhm…”

“Elderek? What happened with him?” he looks back at the monitor and turns it into your direction. You can see the clear classification the Tardis has given his picture. Deceased.

“He died over a year ago. They tried to attack one of the stations, and failed. Shortly after I ended up in captivity. When I returned, I ended up as his replacement.”

The Doctor moves his head to the side, surprised over the development of your story.

“I’m leading this group now.”

He reads again for a while, “And what did you do exactly in your leading position?”

“I… I started negotiations. We reached out to many groups and told them about a plan we had.”

“What plan exactly?”

“You. You were my plan. The man who gets the frequency. The man who promised to help. It was the only story I had, to make them stop shooting missiles at each other.”

“It worked didn’t it? But what caused the planet rotation?”

“There is still war, and not all of them agreed with us. So they went their own way, and started a test, and it worked, the planet started to move. Slowly, but it did. Also I sent out for help, months ago. I sent out a signal, hoping someone would stop by and pick up the last bit of this civilization. We have … I mean _they_ have… escape capsules, but they are not good for travelling far. We need a ship, someone who will pick them up,” you sit there, arms around your legs, biting your fingernails. “I’m not sure if the signal goes far. It’s primitive. We could do with a bigger antenna.”

The Doctor looked long at the monitor in front of him, biting his inner lip, “Hm.”

“Hm? What?” you lower your feet again, watching the Doctor watching you.

You can see in his face, in his mimic, that something will happen, any second now. And when he looks to the still open door of the Tardis, you follow his look and when you look back, you see his right hand on the lever.

A snap with his fingers and the Tardis door goes shut.

“No!” you shout, lunging toward the door, that will not open for you. Fast you turn around, “Don’t you dare!” you hold out a hand, as if magic could stop him. “Don’t you even think about it!”

“We need to go!” his hand gets tight around the metal.

You have only seconds to decide. Try the door again or lunge forward to stop him with physical action if needed. You decide for the last and push his hand away, bringing your body between him and the console, “You can’t do that! You can’t abandon them!”

“I abandon them!” he stays where he is, but does not try to push you away. In the end he knows you better than you have thought, knows you will fight him, and it doesn’t matter how much you love him as a friend. “I did abandon you. I pick you up, and off we are. There is nothing we can do anymore.”

There is something he is not telling you. In the narrow space he leaves you, while he towers over you, you turn around and check the monitor. The ending history of the planet, one of many fixed points in time as it seems. “It will break apart?”

“Yes, that’s the tremors. They didn’t use the right frequency, the planet will break apart in short months,” he has bent forward, captured you between his arms. His voice is a dark demand. “The planet is lost. We go now.”

“No, we don’t!” you turn around, placing your hand on his chest, pressing him firm but gentle away from you and the lever. “You can go, I stay.”

“That’s madness, and your certain death. I will not allow it.”

“Oh, I need your allowance? After all this time, I walked through this door first, without you stopping me, I need your blessings now?”

“Just five minutes ago, you scolded me for not taking care of pudding brains, and now _I do_ , you tell me to …-”

“-To shut up!” you glare at him. “Listen, Doctor. I have a better plan!” you turn around to the Tardis again, moving the monitor with you while you move toward the telepathic circuit.

“What are you trying to do?”

“It’s maybe only an hour for you, but two years for me. I’m no more the person you left behind. I have responsibilities here. I am attached. I am one of them. And you will not control me anymore!” you lower your view to the telepathic circuit. There is no certainty that this will work.

“The Tardis will never let you,” the Doctor moves forward, both hands on the edge of the console.

You shove your fingers into the soft, wobbly mass with a grin, that tells the Doctor otherwise, “The thing is Doctor, I would say yes, but the other things is, the Tardis owns me,” you turn up to the core. “You own me and you know! So. let. me. go. through!”

For a few second nothing happens, and when you think you have to give up, and the glare of the Doctor is about to slowly turn into a winning grin, the core comes to life as if it is a roar. Wheezing and buzzing, lights flickering and while you smile and thank her over the telepathic circuit, you can see the Doctor step back from his own console, in disbelief what his ship is doing.

“I don’t believe it!”

He probably expect you to fly the ship to somewhere, but that is not your plan. You never could fly the ship, you wouldn’t be able to tell where and when. The Tardis is a powerful ship and it not only can fly to the corner of the universe, it also can transmit to the corner of the universe, and that is what you use it for.

You needed a bigger antenna, and now you have one.

“This is an emergency message from Luminar Six. In the star constellation of Terebor. The planet is in danger, and we seek help from everybody who is willing. Send a ship, I beg you, send a ship! We are Delgarians and we are about to die. Our planet is breaking apart. This is an emergency message from Luminar Six.”

‘ _Send it out! Send it out as far as you can!’_ you order the Tardis and you can feel her will to oblige. You nod over to the Doctor and hope he will not be angry too long. Then when you want to retreat from the console, it doesn’t let you. “What?”

The ship is about to take-off. Both, you and the Doctor look confused at the core and then over to each other. “What is she doing?” with force you pull your hands out, almost certain you have dislodged at least one finger.

“I don’t know!” the Doctor yells, before the ship makes a certain turn and you both fall hard to the ground. “She… she is gone haywire!”

“Can you stop her?” you push the monitor back to him, and he jumps in action, trying to take back control over the ship. Sparks fly off off and around the console. Obviously the Tardis has other plans.

You run forward to the door, and this time you can open it easily. The ship has left the planet. Something is wrong, the planet’s rotation is visibly going on.

“What is she doing?”

“We are in the time vortex! I can’t stop her!” the Doctor steps back from the console, as nothing he is doing seems to have an effect.

“Go back to the console!” you wave at him, seeing through the vortex - time now in fast forward mode - what is happening to the planet. It is about to break apart. “No! Doctor!” You are almost about to jump out of the door, and you probably would have, when the Doctor wouldn’t embrace you from behind, to stop you.

“Let me go!”

“Not in a lifetime!”

It’s a real struggle, you are not about to give up, even you know it is the most stupid thing to do. All the emotions, all the grieving over the last two years, the hurt, the hope and the disappointment, now come to the surface, and you fight for dear life against the Doctor’s grip.

“They are dying!” you pant.

“And there is nothing we can do about it!” he groans back, holding you in check.

For a moment you lay still, waiting for him doing a mistake, and indeed he loosens his grip and then you come back to life and jump forward, and it is only his arm around your waist, that keeps you from killing yourself.

“Look!” he pulls you back in, and points out to the planet that is slowly breaking apart. Ships are leaving the surface. People trying to escape.

“They never gonna make it. They’ll die within days,” this time you keep still, it is already too late to do anything. The only thing now is to feel your heart break over the sight.

“I am sorry,” the Doctor whispers, still half laying on you, afraid you will try your move once again. Then something starts to beep behind you both. The monitors flicker red.

‘ _Ships approaching.’_

“Maybe…,” the Doctor moves forward to look out of the door. “Look!”

Two huge ships approach the planet.

“Oh my god,” you utter, unsure how to feel about it. “They.. they start to collect the capsules! Oh my god! Doctor look!”

He starts to laugh, “I see it! Come on!” he takes your wrist and brings you both back onto your feet. “Let’s find out who they are.”

The ship has now left the time vortex, and has moved forward four months. Your call for help, has reached the corners of the universe, and old friends have came to help.

What none of you knew, was that back in the old days, when the planet was in peace and not in danger, and people still worked together, that they had sent out a ship. A colony. That was 400 years ago. And now the offspring's came back home, for the rescue.

You both watch the ships collect the smaller ones, and when everything is done, they leave. Luminar Six left behind, only dust and rocks, floating through space.

“How many? How many could they save?” you ask, slowly closing the door.

The Doctor reads in the archive, “A couple ten-thousand. They will find a new planet. Some will go with their rescuers, some will start a new colony. And they will do amazing things,” he swings the monitor toward you.

You read for a bit, “They do! It’s amazing. They learned their lesson.”

“Because of you. Don’t you see? It was your purpose to land here, to go through all this, to lead them, to send out the signal.”

“Everybody could have sent the signal,” you shake your head.

“No, because they were all so busy fighting,” the Doctor comes to your side. “You started negotiations, you went another way, because of all the experience you had through your time. The fixed point in time, was not the breaking apart of the planet. It was you, saving them. Not all, but many.”

“With a little help of the Tardis,” you smirk over to the console. “Also I have to admit, I don’t get it all. Timey Wimey?”

“Yeah, definitely Time Wimey,” the Doctor agrees.

“Doctor?”

“Mh?”

“Are you mad at me?”

“What for?”

“I destroyed your screwdriver,” you look up to him, remembering that you have thrown the thing to the floor, and none of you had collected it.

The Doctor pads against his coat with a smacking sound of his tongue, “Actually, I always wanted a new one, and now,” he grins at you, swaggering over to the Tardis, pressing a button, “I finally get one.” The Tardis shoves out of a little secret hole a brand new sonic screwdriver. A more linear version, minimalist with a red light at the front.

“Perfectly fitting for a magician,” you say with a smile, shifting around in your clothes. It’s time to get rid of them, back into your stuff.

“So, what do you think? Still interested in France, Paris, 17th century?” he has placed the new gadget into his pocket, and has stepped up to the main control.

“Can we go ... home instead?” you not quite sure what home is anymore. Paris, 17th century is earth, what is home, and yet it is not. When one starts travel with a time lord home is not only a destination, also a certain date - perhaps. You can’t tell. “I want to see a beach, the sun. Water. Can we? Somewhere nice, and quiet?”

“Of course we can,” he smiles gently. There are many things to talk about, many things you both will have to deal with, when finally finding a quiet place.

You nod, tired, and feeling your wounds sore, “Tell me Doctor, how long is it for me now, that we travel together?”

“Uhm,” for a moment he wonders, then makes use of the Tardis computer. “Two years, five month and 12 days. Why?”

“Ah,” you shrug with one shoulder. “Just being curious.” And stand behind him, watch him. He smiles at you, gently, worried and with guilt.

There is still time. For whatever. There is still something to come. And for some reason, you know it won’t end well.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So only as reminder, the time span I chose was ; Two years, six month and 21 days. 
> 
> There is still something to come, and you have to wait a bit for it. I hope you still enjoy the story and this chapter could bring some lose ends together as why the Tardis gave all those memories and I hope I haven't sucked totally in explaining the story around the planet. I might not explain every detail as I trust in you, you will fill it with your own ideas and headcanons. 
> 
> Thanks for the read, I hope I can update once before I am off to camping mid August. I'll try!


	13. 13_You can't forget, but can you forgive?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Doctor and you need to talk over the things that have happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey, sorry for the long delay, but as I said I was on holiday, and didn't find the strength and inspiration to update this one before I left.  
> So here is a brand new chapter, and there are still more to come. Sorry, that I kept you waiting and hope this one makes it up for it.

With a slight rumble the Tardis lands. Usually your reaction would be to storm to the door, but you keep standing behind the Doctor watching him still handling the lever and some buttons.

Time has past, and even you can still feel the impulse inside of you, that makes you want to dash out the front, you feel even more the pain at your chests side and that you indeed has gotten older.

The Doctor turns around to you, a quizzical look on his face, one eyebrow seems to ask you, what the matter is, only then you snap out of your stillness.

“Oh!” you smirk, looking first to the door, then back to the Doctor. Two years have put a spell on your eagerness, a replacement with some sort of fear. A fear that always had been there, you were only always very good in hiding it — only now you realize it. “Of course,” you look to the ground and make a step toward the door.

“No,” he touches you softly by the shoulder. “I think it’s time,...,” he walks by, to the door, his mouth having trouble to speak the words, “to assume a responsibility.”

You chuckle, watching his hand on the door, “It’s just a door.”

You both know there is a lie in plain sight.

“Still,” he pushes the door open and steps out. You follow after half a minute, looking at the Tardis before you step out, remembering when you have done it the last time. Remembering the copy-doctor.

‘ _I am sorry.’_

“Come on!” the Doctor waves you over. “I actually managed to get it right this time!” He spreads out his arms in front of a large beach. White sand, beautiful weather and the sea is washing calmly onto the shore.

Your boots sink into the soft sand, and the sun warmth your body through your clothes. A feeling you almost have forgotten. How many nights, have you slept in the cold? Uncountable ones.

“Where are we?” you ask, watching your hand throw a shadow on the ground.

“South Europe,” he says quickly and then adds hesitant, “I think.”

“You think?”

“It’s Earth, isn’t it?” he swirls around, trying to make a point. What is one spot on earth for all in time and space?

You smirk, you not want to quarrel over details, “How is the water?”

The Doctor scans it with the sonic, “Wonderful 24 degrees.”

“Celsius, I hope?”

He makes a grimace and you snicker, before bowing down to get rid of one of your boots, then the next.

Throwing them somewhere into the sand, you walk forward toward the water, getting rid of your jacket and then the trousers. And when you are already knee deep in the water, you only wear your underwear.

The water is indeed very pleasant and the feeling of the rushing sea around your legs makes you forget everything else around you.

There is no Doctor, no Tardis. Only you, and the sea. It was and is always the sea you loved.

You stand there for maybe two or three minutes, listening to the swooshing, sniffing in the salty air and watching the waves break. Then a jolt goes through you and you march with vigour forward, feeling the strength of mother nature against your thighs. As if the waves want to stop you from coming forward and you fight against it, leaning forward and when splashes from broken waves have covered you in salt water, you lean forward and dive down into the cool liquid.

 _Home_ , you think.

It doesn’t matter if it is 1723 or 2343. For a moment you forget the pain, the sorrow and the times you have cried yourself to sleep.

You come up from under the water, the salt prickling on your skin, and you can see the Doctor stand by the brink. He is still there, and for a moment you think he smiles over your actions, but maybe that is only a trick of the light.

With a deep breath, you spread your arms, let the sun and the warmth take over your body, and when you hear a rushing sound, and feel a state of weightlessness, you let yourself fall back, into the waves, under water. And there you stay, till everything goes black.

#

When you wake up again, you feel the sand around your toes and something around your body. Wrapped up in a blanket, you lie near the shore, your hair wet and you can see a path drawn through the sand, aside some footsteps, coming out of the water.

Coming up on your elbows, you look around you, finding the Doctor sit aside you. His hair is also wet, and he is only wearing his trousers and a t shirt — wet. His jumper and coat gone. His shoes and socks aside him, on a rock. Drying in the sun.

“What has happened with you?” you wonder. “Why are you so wet?” You frown, and try to remember if you have given into your urge, to convince him to take a swim before… .

“I might not know much about swimming,” he begins. “Also I am sure you have done it wrong.”

“I blacked out?” you now remember.

“That, or you tried to go for a new record in holding your breath.”

“Maybe I was,” you give it a laugh, trying to imagine how the Doctor has hurled himself into the water to drag you out. “How long did you give me?”

“Oh,” he muses with his head from left to right, “after a minute I thought you weren’t trying and went after you.”

“A minute? A whole minute!” you turn toward him, ready to banter till one bleeds. Catching his grin, you point at him. This round he wins.

The moment your body had hit the waves, he had rushed into the water, lamenting and cursing like he was a cat that had been thrown into water, to come to your rescue.

“Well, that’s what you do, isn’t it?” you sit up, digging your feet into the sand, the blanket over your shoulders. “Rescuing people.”

He watches your toes play with the sand, before looking at his own feet, and after a minute he digs his own into the warm grain and you wonder, when it was the last time he had the muse to just sit there and enjoy the silence.

“It is,” he says. “It’s what I try to do. It not always works out. To many… .”

You both share a glance, he doesn’t have to end the sentence. All the names that have been left behind, have been forgotten and have been died, are the same in your head. Too many — the price he pays, for saving millions.

In your long nights, when you couldn’t sleep, or didn’t want to, you thought about that. If the Doctor really paid the price, or if the companion did. In the end, the Doctor was still there. Regenerated, but the same man.

“I thought you died,” you start, when you have counted till fifty, feeling his gaze on you. “I knew you didn’t, but I thought… I tried to believe it. It was more comforting as to know that you… you abandoned me. Funny isn’t it?”

“Better seeing me dead, for your own comfort?” the corners of your mouth dart up for a moment, when he says it. “I guess I would have done the same.”

“You would have found a way,” you say quicker as you want. “You are the Doctor, you don’t get stuck on a planet for two years.” You see your error too late.

“No,” he laughs. “I spent a thousand on it.”

You fall into his laughter and you only can stop when you feel the pain of your scars torture your body.

“Sorry,” you rub through the blanket over your side, when you see the Doctor look with furrowed eyebrows at you.

With a huff, he shuffles closer, “Let me,” and his hand tugs down the blanket.

You watch him, observe your wounds attentive, unsure what his plan is. “This one?” his fingers follows down one of the scars that are very deep, and had healed so badly that now everything hurts. It sends a shiver through your body and replaces the pain for a second. Slightly you flinch away.

It not only hurts, it’s also very ugly, and that’s why you want to cover it again with the blanket, but the Doctor doesn’t let you.

“This one?” he asks again, locking eyes with you and unfamiliar urge in his voice.

“Yes,” you swallow.

Two fingers search the beginning of the scar, by your ribcage and follow its path over your back — a yellow glow healing the wound.

“But-” the Doctor keeps you in place, with a firm hand on your shoulder and heals the deep wound with his regeneration energy. The yellow light hurts on your skin, it burns, also when he is done, you feel the release — the wound is erased.

You feel the rest of the scars on your skin, but the pain is gone, the edgy part has healed. With wide open eyes you stare at him, you forget almost to breathe. “You shouldn’t have.”

Old memories pop up in your head, bringing out the meaning of his doing. The healing of a wrist — regeneration energy… wasted? Opening your mouth, ready to lecture him about it, you sense it would make no sense. It is done, and can’t be taken back. The man is 2500 years old, _old enough_ , you think, _to make his own decisions_. With an exhale you close your mouth again, and nod thankfully.

In an awkward motion you bring the blanket around your shoulders again, in need to come up with some words. They fail you and so you keep quiet.

“You were right,” the Doctor then says after a while, sniffling, brushing away a drop of water from his nose, that has run down from his hair over his forehead. “I tested you. From the beginning.”

‘ _You had your reasons,’_ comes to your mind, but you don’t say it. You will not let him off the hook just like that. You are no one, who forgets easily — usually never, and no one who forgives that fast. Silence seems golden in this moment.

“I wanted you to be courageous. Fearless. I wanted to see if you … could keep up,” he finishes, looking into the horizon, his voice thick with emotion.

Thinking about his words, a frown builds up, “Keep up? With you?”

“No,” he chuckles a bit. “I can’t keep up with myself sometimes, so… . With the others.”

“The…?” it dawns on you. “Oh, the others.”

“Did you know, the Tardis only adds their names, when they are gone?” the Doctor turns toward you, before standing up. He motions you to walk a bit, and you follow.

“No, I didn’t,” you walk side by side. You, closer to the water, so that it washes over your feet now and then, while the Doctor tries to stay out of it.

“For once in 2500 years, I wanted one name, _not_ to end up there.”

You stop, bowing down, to pick up a purple seashell. Waiting for the next wave, you clean it free from sand and the Doctor watches you patiently. Smiling down onto the small piece, you hold it out to him, “We die eventually,” when he takes it from you, your fingers brush against each other, and you grab his wrist for a brief moment, “we all end up there.”

Letting go you turn around, walking now toward the Tardis, “Either you travel alone, or you keep choosing us, with the certainty of us dying or leaving or forgetting,” all the stories you have in your head, and aside you doesn’t have his emotions in you, you produce your own and when looking into his eyes, you find, they are probably not that different. “Sometimes, the only choices you haver are… ”

“... bad ones. I know,” he picks up his boots from the rock, before you both find yourself in front of the Tardis. “It really was not my intention to leave you behind. I don’t do this on purpose. You probably think, I am a playful fool, juggling with the lives and years of my companions — I am not.”

While standing there, with his half dry shirt, clutching to his shoulders, and flapping in the wind by the hemline, no socks, no boots, and his hair all haywire, he doesn’t look like the almighty alien, the almighty Time Lord he is. More like a lost soul, stranded and forgotten in the playgrounds of the universe by … you can’t tell by whom. His race? Himself?

No, he is not forgotten, more abandoned, feared, and he doesn’t know why.

 _Because he is extraordinary_ , you think.

“I know,” you nod and tap against your temple. “Remember.”

A moment of silence and awkwardness arises between you both, neither of you wants to go in first, neither of you knows how it will go on from now on. Certainly not everything is talked, also not everything must be talked about — not all at once.

It’s the Doctor who breaks the silence with a clearing of his throat, “So,... shall I bring you home?”

“Home? I am home,” you point to the ocean behind you.

“I mean, home, the cafe, London. Your time,” nervously he shoves his hands into his wet pockets, his fingers tracing the seashell he has put there.

“Oh,” you understand. “Do you … do you want me to go?”

“Hell, no!”

Relief washes over you, “Well, hell! Good! Because, you _owe_ me a trip!” you tap against his chest.

One of his eyebrows comes up, while his face looks down to your finger, “I _owe_ you?”

“Yeah, Mister,” you push open the door. “You owe me, France, 17th century.”

“After all this time? I told you they don’t exist!” he follows, all grumpy again. Exactly like you want him to be. “The Musketeers, a myth!” His hands are already on the keyboard.

“Let history be the judge of that, will you?” you press “enter” for him, and he growls at you, before stepping toward the lever.

“Pah! I said it once, I say it again,” he pushed the first lever around. “Who am I, to argue with history?” with a bright grin he brings down the second. And off you are, once more, to adventure.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made some references to "The Angels Take Manhattan" where 11 heals River's wrist. I don't really know how that worked and stuff. There are some discussions in the net about it and how it could have worked. As the 12th Doctor has a new regeneration cycle I assume he now has a bit less of energy, what doesn't mean he has given up one whole regeneration for one scar. 
> 
> I have to admit, I don't know how the story will go on, I have no plan, well I have one, but I don't know how it will be in written form. I assume this story will end in 2 chapters. Stay tuned!  
> Thanks for the read and leave a comment if you like!


	14. 14_Something is coming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There are things to face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so so sorry to keep you all waiting so long. This story is slowly killing me, and I needed a bit to come up with the happenings here. Sometimes I think this story could be so much more, but I am not good enough for it. Not invested enough. Anyhow, I think it's a good chapter.

The Doctor rushes first through the door, trips over his own feet, and falls flat, while you can’t stop yourself anymore, and tangle up with his feet and fall over him. You both can kick the door shut, before a horde of the King’s Imperial guard gets hold of you.

“That was close!” the Doctor huffs, getting up again, and brushing some dirt from his coat. The answer from outside the door is a loud thumping against it, and the demand to open the door.

Your answer is, “As usual.”

He gives you a proud grin, while striding over to the console to bring the box into the safety of the Time Vortex, “You know that was actually your fault.”

You let yourself down into a chair, “That’s true. But I had to prove a point,” you bring out the lighter, snapping it, to make a flame. You had scared off half the court with. Cardinal Richelieu leading the way. You both had done enough shenanigans in the few days you had spent with the Musketeers, and to proof that fire was not only God's big gracious act, you had pulled out your lighter, “I beg to differ!” and the only thing to calm the waves again was, for the Doctor, to grab your hand and make you both run.

“That was not proving a point,” he snarls at you, also with amusement around his eyes. “They wanted to burn us!”

The face the Cardinal had pulled, makes you now chuckle, before he had announced to burn you both the next morning, “You’re just grumpy because you and the Cardinal do have indeed a very alike look. You both resemble, and probably not only in physical features — and that makes you grumpy.”

“We do NOT look alike!” he protests. His way of telling you, he is unique in all in time and space. “Not even a bit!”

You grin down to the floor, lighting the lighter again, “I beg to differ!”

“Oh, shut up!” he snaps, taking the lighter from your hands quicker as you can realize. “Have you even looked at the man? Have you seen this ridiculous thing in his face?”

“The beard?” you ask confused. “The goatee? Come on, that was not ridiculous, it was… aside it was very modern for that time, it looked rather-”

The Doctor glares at you, and you swallow the word “attractive” and say, “-silly.” No need to piss off the driver.

“Also, I am a whole inch taller as him!” he spreads his arms in front of you, as if this fact really is a good argument to tell that he has no look-alikes in the universe.

From your memory — or better his, you know there are at least two others. You are no one for arguing about it. “I’m sure that applies for the rest of your body too?” It is more an absent minded comment, but you find the Doctor’s face right in front of you.

“What are you suggesting?”

“Uhm,” you are startled and lost for words. It happens not often, that the Doctor searches your near like this. Even in his anger. “N-nothing. Cardinal Richelieu absolutely doesn’t look like you. I mean look at him!” you point away from him, hoping the Doctor would retreat and he does indeed and you both look at nothing but thin air. “He tried to burn us, that is totally against the Time Lord spirit of you! So “not-like-you”.”

The Doctor eyes you once more, unsure how to take your comments, even after all this while. You both had some great days with the Musketeers — who weren’t a myth after all. In the company of others, you both found yourself to a new form of friendship. Understanding and caring. The Doctor finally took his responsibility serious, and didn’t let you just wander off, didn’t you just let throw yourself into danger. This time he was at your side, and you appreciated it more than you would have ever thought. Also, there were situation you weren’t sure if he got it right.

“ _Doctor… err.. that’s a spoon!” you had held up the sword you had borrowed from Aramis._

“ _So?” he wavered around with it in front of the two soldiers you both were facing._

“ _It’s not helping!” you had almost dropped your sword again, only to argue with him. The two enemy soldiers sharing uncertain glances with each other._

“ _Watch me fence!” was all he had said, and you had to admit afterwards, he was an absolute pro in spoon-fencing. Even D'Artagnan — the whipper-snapper — had been impressed._

“ _You two are a good team,” he had smirked, and you both had shared a glance, unsure how to take the compliment._

In the weeks after your rescue, you two still banter way too much, but you found a funny sort of satisfaction and amusement in it, and there are moments you both lock eyes, where you think, that still everything is possible between the Doctor and you. Not that you had romantic feelings for him, but you sense, you haven’t let that point behind you. It is more still in front of you, and the only question is, will you run into it or not. And sometimes you can read in the Doctor that he thinks the same way. There are moments he seems over his lose of Clara, and ready for something new. You can’t be sure.

You don’t think about it really, you like it how it is. This friendship, slowly growing, finally.

While you embrace the new connection with the Doctor, you still avoid the Tardis — as far as it is possible, as you live in the Tardis. You ignore the projection of her that shows up from time to time in your room, hoping for interaction. Once it even has made you coffee, what you had ignored.

Only at one time, you almost fell, turning around, ready to break the silence, and seeing in the emotionless eyes of the projection something like hope, you opened your mouth for words. And when they didn’t came, you veiled yourself again, turning around to read a book till the projection had vanished again.

For some reason you couldn’t forget and most of all not forgive. The Doctor had abandoned you, and it was the Tardis who seemed to know about it all. Something told you to keep away from her, knowing there was still something in store, she never would tell you, and so you kept punishing her with your ignorance.

“You’re still mad at the Tardis,” the Doctor one day approached the sensitive topic.

“You know?” not that it wasn’t obvious, but you sensed he knew it for different reasons.

“I am some sort of linked with her, so, yes I know, or feel her dissatisfaction with the situation.”

The phrasing makes you chuckle, “You know I have my reason, and I know it’s your ship and all, and she is basically your girlfriend for millennia,” he cocks an eyebrow at you over saying it, but keeps quiet. “But that is something between her and me. At least I think it is.”

The Doctor only nods, unsure what to say. He knows he will not convince you to a talk when you not want to.

“She knew,” you say after a moment. “And she knows. And there are no words and no action that will make her tell me about the future — like there are no words and actions that will make me forgive her for keeping it away.”

“Telling someone their future, can be dangerous,” the Doctor begins, slowly wandering around the console toward you. “She couldn’t risk it.”

Glancing up at him, knowing he is not wrong, “You’ll defend her till you die, Doctor, and I would do the same. I even can understand it, the motivation, but, isn’t that, what I tried to … to teach you? We are not only pudding brains. We are more than that, and … have a little trust. The worst part of being there for two years, was not being there for two years, it was the not knowing if you ever would come back. The feeling of betrayal.”

The Doctor swallowed, fumbling with his hands.

“The Tardis and you, you could have told me.”

“And then you would have stayed willingly on the planet?”

Shifting agitated in your seat, knowing which way the Doctor wants to turn, you snap, “How shall I know?”

“What would have happened, if we told you, and what would have happened, if you would have said, no? Should I have left you anyhow on the planet, kicking you out of the door, calling “See you in two years!”?”

You think about it for a moment, “I don’t know, also there is a difference between waiting two years in despair or filled up with anger. For you, the difference, would probably have been a slap in the face!”

“I’m getting your drift,” he shrugs. “It’s past. I can’t change it, you can’t. No one can.”

“And that from a Time Lord!” you huff, but knowing what he wants to say. Fixed point in time. A few days ago you found a book about it in the library. Very interesting, also terribly boring. _No wonder,_ you think, _he almost not graduated from the academy._ He had stopped reading it, like you had done after an hour.

You both don’t talk about it anymore. What is there to talk? Also you are busy with adventures, new planets, new friends and old enemies. Time goes on, leading its paths toward something. You can feel it, it’s like a tingling feeling inside of you, a buzzing that gets stronger and stronger, but you ignore it — at least you try.

Then one morning you wake up, doing your morning routine, before you want to join the Doctor in the console room. The tingling feeling is stronger this morning as ever before — no chance to ignore it.

Also the copy Doctor seems to try one more attempt in making you talk, materializing while you dress. There you lose it, your temper and your patience.

“It’s not nice, watching people get dressed!” you snap, and the projection leans back slightly but keeps silent. You hate yourself for a moment, that you broke your silence, closing your eyes to find ease again. While you do it, you listen. To the ship, the humming of the core, always there, subtle, but when one concentrates, one can hear it. Feel it too, the soft vibration that crawls up from the floor, through the feet, right into the middle of your body.

There you realise it makes no sense to fight, and to not forgive, “Listen,” you open your eyes, looking at him, “it’s fine. You are forgiven, I don’t care about it anymore. It’s over, it has happened, you had your damn reasons and now leave me alone. It’s okay, alright?”

You don’t expect a reaction, also you hope for one. Some word of wisdom maybe, some offer, — some regret. Nothing of it the Tardis will give you, instead, “You know what day it is?”

Rolling your eyes, and tying your boots, “Pfff, Monday? No, wait, I think it’s Thursday!” there is a certain sarcastic tone you snap at him with, and when you pass him, you turn around once more, “Oh wait! It doesn’t matter. You are a bloody time machine, since when it matters what day it is?”

You are about to leave the room, when the words of the Tardis make you stop so harsh in your track, that a muscle in your back hurts, “You know very well, I was not talking about a week day, but about a certain day.”

Shifting on your feet, you regret you told the Tardis you have forgiven her, then you count to ten in your head and turn around, “There is this feeling inside of me. Is that you? The Doctor’s memories?”

“No, that’s you, knowing what will come.”

“I don’t know what will come, how can I know? Do I look like a Time Lord or something?” you have enough, of all of it. “I don’t give a damn!”

“We both know that is a lie,” the copy-Doctor says gently.

You want to snap at him once more, but you get interrupted. Suddenly the room tilts, the ship flies some manoeuvre that makes you almost fall to the floor. Instead you fall hard against a cupboard, that crashes. “What was that?”

Another abrupt turn of the ship, and a rumbling goes through the shell — it feels like someone has hit the Tardis. Has fired maybe?

You lock eyes with the Tardis for a moment, before you decide to go find the Doctor. Something is up, something big, and your place is at his side. That’s where you run to.

“What’s going on?” you call out when you reach the console room. Sparks are flying and the ship is still flying very uneven. The Doctor clings to the console, having a hard time to keep his feet on the ground.

“We are crashing!”

“Crashing? Where?” you cling to the other side of the Tardis. “And why?”

“Someone, something has fired at us, still is. I tried to dodge, but had no chance,” he rips one lever up and presses hectically some buttons. “We’ve been thrown out the Time Vortex and now crashing. There is no planet. It’s just space.”

“How can we crash then?”

As answer he shoves one of the monitors toward you. Blinking in red letters it says “Impact soon”.

“Again, how can we crash? In space?”

“I don’t know!” he calls out, unnerved. “I never don’t know!”

You shoot him a look, telling him, that it is a lie and he only smirks, before another shot hits the Tardis and you both fall down to the ground. You hit your head, and you can feel blood stream down your temple, aside that you feel okay. The Doctor grabs your hand and helps you up, catching a glimpse at your injury.

“It’s okay,” you shove him back to the console. “Who is this?”

Intend he checks the data the Tardis provides, but there are missing spots. Something the Tardis does not know, can’t know. Your enemy is too strong as it seems.

“Someone who is obviously not pleased to see us!”

Then suddenly the ship finds back into a stable position. It’s drifting, chipped but fine. Something is wrong, you sense.

“It’s so ….”

“... silent,” the Doctor finishes. “The silence before the storm.”

He will keep right, like usual.

“Doctaaaaaaaaaa!” a voice like metal scratching. “Doctaaaaaaaa!”

The monitors flare to life, showing you the pictures of your enemy. First a ship, a massive ship, then… a Dalek.

Daleks.

For a moment you both don’t breathe, the shock to huge, the fear to strong.

 _The day is here,_ you think. The time is up — how ironic, thinking that thought in a time machine.

You look over to the Doctor. You have seen many emotions go through him, in your time with him. Anger, disgust, laughter, sadness and some sort of fear, but this expression is new. It’s reserved for only one enemy in all in time in space. For the Daleks.

Seeing it, makes you realize one thing, one very certain thing. Your time here, is coming to an end.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am not sure how many chapters this will have left. One? Two? Two I think. Can't tell. I hope to update as soon as possible! Thanks for the read and sticking around!


	15. 15_Opposite of Impossible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One last adventure. One last chapter. The story ends here.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am sorry. Not because the story ends here today, more I feel I could have been better with this story. I could have written more and .. yeah... better. It was mistake to write two big fics side by side. Some can do that, and I could do it too, but I always felt one of them suffered because I was only half with it. So I decided to bring this one to an end. Not a bad end (in quality means), but it could be better. Still I think the idea of this story is not bad, its pretty good and has potential. One day, I maybe return to this one, and write more for it. Make more of it -- but who I want to fool, it probably never will happen.  
> Anyway, I hope you enjoyed the journey, you, as companion, took with the Doctor. I didn't give you an easy path to travel, but I hope I gave you an exciting one, a good one and I hope I was able to give you a firework for the end.  
> Enjoy, oh and yeah... I am sorry. ;)
> 
> When you want to get into the right mood, I recommend to listen to "I am the Doctor" or "A good man?" (12 theme S8 OST, the faster pace, starting with minute 2) in the first half and for the second part of this chapter (you will notice the tempo break, don't worry) you can go with "Goodbye Pond" from the S7 OST. I can tell you, this gives the full effect of emotions.

“Daleks!” the Doctor repeats and motions you over to the other side of the console. “How the hell do they always find me? Little buggers!”

You spin some wheel and press some buttons, when the monitor in front of you flickers up. The Tardis has made her own inquires over the attacker, and gives you the information in red thick letters, “I am sorry to disappoint you Doctor, but it’s not Daleks!”

Over the loud buzzing of the machine, the flying sparks, which occasionally hit your hand and face and the annoying metal voice, the Doctor looks at you in horror and surprise. “That’s definitely Daleks!”

“No! It’s just one! One Dalek!” you spin the monitor over and he catches it.

“Are you kidding me?” he calls up, after reading the information, and you can’t be sure if he means you or the Tardis, so you speak for both of you.

“I think,” you need to bring a lever up with one of your shoes while your hand reaches to the other side, “we are past that since chapter seven!”

Then another rumble goes through the ship, “We are back in the time vortex!” The Doctor scans the ship and the environment. “Indeed, one Dalek! I can’t believe it! Just one Dalek?”

“Not deadly enough for you? Are we having a bit of attention deficit?”

“Very funny,” he growls over with a wink. “Stabilize the gravity field, when you are at it!” You would mock salute if you had an extra hand. “I also have bad news, the Dalek has followed us into the vortex.”

“Oh, how much more funny this gets with every second,” you want to add something more when the ship gets hit by a burst of laser fire. You fall hard to the floor and the Doctor gets almost thrown over the railing.

“ _Doctoooooooooooooor!”_ it screeches through the room over the speakers. The hair at the back of your neck reacts to it.

You both need a moment to find your way back to the console, when the Doctor presses a button to establish a connection with the Dalek ship, “What do you want?”

“ _Extermination!”_

“No way!” you laugh up, and shut up quickly when the Doctor raises a finger at you.

“Why are you alone?”

Another impact hits the Tardis, but this time you are able to hold on.

“How about dodging the shots?” the Doctor suggests annoyed.

“So, I am the pilot now?” you jump to another part of the console and take control over the navigation system so you can avoid the shots — some of them. “That’s almost like playing some arcade game.”

“Why are you alone, Dalek?” he repeats in fierce.

“ _I lost my master ship in the Time War,”_ the voice hurts in your ears and distracts you so much, that another shot hits the ship.

‘ _Sorry,’_ you mouth, seeing in the corner of your eye, that one of the bookshelf has caught fire. No time to worry, the Tardis has hopefully stored the books away.

“The Time War? That was ages ago!” the Doctor’s eyes widen in panic when he sees the bookshelf too. He grabs a fire extinguisher and paces over to fight the flames while continuing his dialogue with the Dalek. “The Daleks are dead!”

“ _My order isn’t!”_

“Don’t ask, don’t ask,” you whisper to yourself, it only will cause more trouble you assume, and it does.

“What’s your order?”

“ _Kill the Doctor! Kill the Doctor! Exterminate! Exterminate!”_

You press a button and cancel the connection. “Why did you do that?” the Doctor yells, finally able to bring the flames down.

“Because it is boring, and no news! And!” you hit the console with you fist. “We are crashing … again!”

“What?” the Doctor comes to you, his shoulder hard against yours, reaching out to help you to press a lever to the right. It doesn’t help. “Where?”

You check the monitor, “Earth! Ah, where else. Nice finale! Uhm.. does it matter to you when?”

You both share a glance and a smirk, ”Not really.”

The Tardis once more goes all haywire. Like a stubborn, wild gone horse the ship seems to throw itself from left to the right, from up to down and back. This time, you both can feel it, you will crash and it will hurt a lot.

“Good,” you look out for a good place to hold on. “Because I don’t know.”

“ _Attention. Crash in ten,”_ the Tardis announces.

“Ten what?” the Doctor asks in horror, and tries to hold on to one of the railings.

_"9 - 8 - 7 …"_

“Great,” you breath hard, sweat and blood is streaming down your temples, and another fire has broken out at the other side. “Flippin’ great!” The only thing you and the Doctor can do, is close your eyes and hope it will go once more fine.

“ _3 - 2 … “_

When you open your eyes again, you can’t say if you have been unconscious or not. You can’t even say where is up and where is done. The gravity still works inside the Tardis, so it could mean the ship has landed on the top and is now upside down, you both wouldn’t notice till you would step out.

A painful groan escapes you, while you eye your surroundings. The Tardis was able to kill the flames at least, the rest is smoke and ashes.

 _It will cost a hell lot of a time to repair all that,_ you think.

Another groan, the Doctor, brings you back into the now. He is unharmed, at least from what you can see. His coat is slightly shredded. “Holy! What a ride. I think we have landed.”

“That or we’re stuck in the time vortex,” you rest your head for another moment on the hard ground before you join the Doctor with a limping by the monitor.

“No, we have landed, crashed, in… oy, that’s new,” he makes a grimace and the way his eyebrows move it is not lie.

“Where?”

“Somewhere in Scotland.”

“Have I ever told you, I’ve never been to Scotland?” you shrug. “There is just one question, what’s with our wild gone Dalek?”

“It’s ship crashed too, right aside us,” the monitor begins to flicker, and the Doctor hits against it with his flat palm. “Come on! ... No, energy is gone. Can’t say if it is still alive.”

For a moment you stop hearing the Doctor, for a moment a sharp pain goes through your head, so painful it brings you to your knees, your hands covering your ears, “Oh god!” It’s then when a flash of pictures and memories conquers your mind.

It has happened before, quite often after the Tardis had “infected” you with all the Doctor’s memories. Then when most of it had been processed by your brain, the attacks had died down. The last you had where several month ago, when you had been still on Luminar Six.

“What is it?” the Doctor drops to your side. “Are you hurt?” Almost in panic he gets his sonic screwdriver out and checks you for injuries.

“No, I am... ,” you always need a moment after new memories have floated your mind. An experience that is as compelling as it is exhausting, and this time it is a big revelation to you.

While the Doctor is still sonicing you, you shot up, grabbing his arms, staring with wide open eyes into his. It might is the first time ever you realize that his eyes are not strictly blue or green, they are changing, all the time — like an ocean. “Wow.”

“What?” he mimics your hold onto him.

“You have some gorgeous eyes!” you breathe taken away.

“Are you drunk?”

Chuckling you shake your head, “We have to get out of here.”

“No we don’t!” he brings you both up your feet. “That’s the safest place as long as we don’t know about the Dalek.”

“No, no, it’s still alive. I know,” you babble. It’s clear now. Everything is. “I understand now.”

“To be honest, I don’t,” the Doctor returns to the console, trying to bring some life into the electronic. “If the Dalek is still intact, we have to need a plan.”

“Yes,” you walk over, and grab his arm, tugging him with you. “Me. I am the plan.”

“Miller-Smith?”

“The Dalek-,” you’re not getting further, as the Dalek materializes not five feet away from you. Protectively the Doctor spreads his arms in front of you.

The Dalek needs a few seconds for orientation, but then finally locks his eye on you, “Doctor! Exterminate!”

“Jump!” the Doctor yells, and while he jumps to the left, you jump to the right, and the phaser shot hits the wall. The Tardis shakes itself in protest.

“Exterminate!”

“I have to reactivate the Tardis self protecting system,” the Doctor motions to the console. “She will eliminate it then. You have to distract it!”

You nod, and what happens next, are only seconds, moments. Fleeting moments in relation to all in time and space. With spread arms, you run away from the console, hoping the Dalek would make its move on you and not the Doctor, and for a moment it looks like it. Several shots miss you, while the Doctor works hectically at the console. Slowly life comes back into the heart of the Tardis.

Then the Dalek finds its primary target again - the Doctor, and turns away from you. You know all this of course. You know how things will play out, how they would play out, when you wouldn’t be there.

Grabbing the fire extinguisher you manage to spray the toxic mist into the Daleks eye, before it can aim correctly, but not before it can fire. The shot misses the Doctor, but hits the console, and its massive energy not only goes straight into the Tardis core — what finally gives her the energy to come back to life, it also goes into the Doctor, throwing him wide through the room.

“Doctor!” you try to make your way over, aware that the Dalek is still highly dangerous. “How about some help?” you call over to the console, seeing it has come back to life. A humming goes through the room and you hope it is a ‘ _yes’_.

“Exterminate! Extermi-” the self protection system comes on, and eliminates the deadly enemy at once in a very unspectacular beam of light. Metal to dust.

“Good girl,” you whisper, shoving some metal rods that had came down from the ceiling aside. “Doctor…,” you find him groaning on the floor, covered in dust and spray from the fire extinguisher. Carefully you rub dirt from his face. “Come on, we have to get out of here. The Tardis will take care of repairs. We need fresh air.”

It’s an approving murmur, the man is hardly able to walk, yet able to speak. Only with your help the Doctor manages to get outside. That the phaser has hit the Tardis first has soften the blow, has bewared him from immediate extermination, also not saved his life.

The Tardis has not landed upside down, luckily, and so you both drop onto the soft grass. In the distance you can see Scotland's finest cliffs. If you wouldn’t be so busy worrying about the Doctor, it would be almost breathtaking.

“That was close,” you breath, laying on the ground, his upper body half on the ground, half in your arm. The fresh air does you good. A fine cold breeze, exactly how you imagined Scotland. You glance around, god knows what date it is. There is no sign of civilization, it seems the Tardis has crashed in the middle of nowhere.

Then you feel the Doctor laugh in silence, “Not only close.”

Also this, you know. “We’ll deal with it,” one hand pats his shoulder reassuring, the other digs into the grass aside you, wet and soft.

Your words make him come up to face you, “We?” His emotions are so multifarious right now and it amazes you, that in the end, you were able to construct this moment. Fear, hope, anger, love, friendship, amazement, puzzlement only to say a few.

A smug smile flickers over your face, when you come up too, rubbing your hands free from the dust and the dirt, with the wetness of the grass, “I am the plan, Doctor. Didn’t you hear me say it?”

He bends under a wave of pain that goes through him — it already has begun, “Of course I did, I simply thought you had one blow too much to the head.”

The way he says it, with sincere doubt in your sanity, makes you burst into laughter, a laughter that quickly turns into tears, “Good one.”

“Why are you crying?”

“Because now,” again your fingers find the grass, digging into the earth, “we come full circle.”

“I regenerate soon,” he only says, after another jolt goes through him.

You watch him, the first waves of golden energy starts to prickle in the tip of his fingers, it’s not much time left.

“No, you don’t,” you grab his hand, wet ground on your fingers, now on his skin. The shimmer vanishes by your touch and the Doctor quickly retreats from you, knowing what would happen if someone would touch him while regeneration.

“You better step away when it happens,” he stumbles away, obviously not understanding what you want to tell him.

“It will not happen,” you follow. “As I said, I am the plan.”

“You are talking nonsense!”

“Story time -”

“-Seriously? You want to tell me a story while I am dying?” he is mocking you, one last time.

“Shut up!” you grin. “Years ago, I was very, very sick. The heart,” you laugh. “I needed a Doctor so very much, and I met one. Not you, but another one. A very good one. Doctor Martha Jones, telling me and us a story, about a man, about a Doctor — you.”

“The year that never was, when the Master ruled us,” the Doctor has trouble standing on his feet so he slowly sinks down to the ground, resting his back on the wood of the Tardis. “You shouldn’t even remember.”

“No, I shouldn’t and I haven’t till twenty minutes ago, when another wave of memory hit me. Anyway, I didn’t forget like all the others. Well, it’s complicated.”

The Doctor chuckles, “What isn’t?”

“Did you never wonder? No family, no friends, no nothing,” you sink at his side, feeling the soothing vibration of the Tardis float through you, the warm wood and you know you going to miss it.

“You said they died,” he thinks about it for a moment. After hearing it, he never had made further inquiries. As your early relationship had been so complicated and he had been still grieving he hadn’t asked any more questions. Later he had forgotten about it, not wanted to scratch up old wounds of you. “I thought…”

“They didn’t die,” you lean against him for a moment. “I did.”

You love when his eyebrows make his thinking process visible, “Is this going somewhere before I regenerate?”

“My heart didn’t get better of course, and I met someone else,” you rub your hands against your trousers to get rid of the blood from your temples that has mixed up with the cold soil. “Clara. Not your Clara of course, one of her echoes.”

“Clara…,” the Doctor whispers, smiling gently for a few seconds, before his eyebrows build one harsh line again. “I still don’t get it.”

“You know, Clara jumped into your time stream, generating all those echoes, but it didn’t mean, they could be all successful. Sometimes you lose a battle, and in your case, that might could have been fatal,” you start to explain. “Do you really think Clara would go into a battle without a plan b?”

“Oh,” slowly it dawns on the Doctor. “Clara, my Clara. Clever girl!”

“Oy, I am into this too… a bit of credit?” you poke his arm.

“You are the plan b, and c, and d I guess.”

“I am an echo of myself. My real me died, but before, Clara was able to extract an echo of myself. No memories, just a blank page, working in a coffee shop,” you can’t remember how you got the job there, you simply had it. “The opposite of impossible.”

“The Tardis…,” he trails off in thoughts about what had happened in the last few month with you.

“She knows everything, past, present and future. She knew I had to be here at this day, and that’s why she gave me all those memories. First for surviving Luminar Six and second as reward. And of course to understand of what to do, and why. Everything is connected.”

The Doctor gawks at you, “That’s damn wibbly wobbly timey wimey, isn’t it?”

You both need to laugh heartily, “Yeah, it is.”

“Just let me regenerate,” he then says.

“You can’t!” you call out. “There is no energy left. Davros remember? He took almost everything, let alone you gave me something. There will be no regeneration, and Clara knew about it — for whatever reason.”

“And you expect me, to take your life energy from you, only for another stupid face,” he frowns, his eyes mirror sorrow. “I had enough lives. Maybe it’s time.”

“It’s not! This planet, this universe, needs you. It doesn’t need me, I am dead already, I am just a shadow, sent on a last mission. This stupid face, … is needed!” you kneel in front of him, and when you see the golden energy flare up again you grab for his hands. The Doctor struggles, wants to break the connection, but he is too weak already.

“Don’t do this!” he shouts.

“Just let it happen,” slowly the energy from you transfers into the Doctor’s body. The golden light slowly wanders over into your body, collecting the necessary energy and then returns to the Doctor.

It doesn’t hurt, but you feel how you get drained, how life is leaving you. The Tardis sends soothing vibration through the Doctor and you, followed by mental images of comfort send into your mind.

Closing your eyes, you find yourself in an imaginary image of the inside of the Tardis with the Doctor and the copy-Doctor. The Doctor’s coat is not shredded and you have no wounds on your head. The burden of dying and the battle lifted from you for a moment.

“Don’t tell me this is the afterlife,” you look around. It’s the interior of the Doctor’s first incarnation. “With all due respect, but I not want to share it with you two.”

The Doctor smirks and turns to the copy-Doctor, “God, did I really wear that?” he points at the projection of the Tardis. “Fancy waistcoat, dude!”

The projection of the eighth Doctor only shrugs and comes over to you, “You did fine.” He reaches out to you, grabs you by the back of your neck, his thumb stroking over your cheek. “You did fine.”

“Ha! You wanted to say, I did great,” you wink with pursed lips, before patting his arm.

“Were you always that cheeky?” the Doctor strides over. You doesn’t answer. “You did … fantastic, but you shouldn’t do this. There is still time, if you let go now, you will survive. Have a life!”

Finding comfort in the antique looking console, you let your fingers brush over the buttons and levers, “What is this world without you? Without a Doctor? Lost!” you whirl around to him. After a minute of silence you add, “Maybe it’s true. Maybe it’s us, paying the price for your long life.”

“There is some truth in it,” he never forgot all those names, not one of them. And sometimes, when nobody's looking, and when there are moments with no running, he grieves them. Cries a little, before moving on. Because he has too, because it’s his burden. The biggest of all, living on, while all the others don’t.

“It’s worth it,” you touch his arm. “We do it because we want, because you need to keep going. Safe us and the universe. Sometimes all the choices you have are bad ones, remember? This is not a bad one,” you feel how the Doctor slowly loses his restrain and comes at ease with your decision. “It’s a good one.”

“I can never thank you,” he takes your hands in his, opening up, letting the energy now flow free between you and him.

“You already have, and you always will,” you come to your knees and with a last look to the copy-Doctor you find yourself back in the reality.

The process is done, except for a little bit, all your life energy has transferred to the Doctor, who now feels better again. “Big adventures are ahead of you. I know I tell spoilers,” you fight for air for a moment, “but… but when you thought you’ve seen it all, I can tell you, you haven’t.”

He knows you don’t lie, it’s all in your head. The Tardis connected with the Doctor, as she once was with Clara, knows the future of her precious Time Lord and knows what to do to prevent him from it.

Sometimes she is all he needs, and sometimes it’s Clara’s echoes he needs and who come to the rescue.

Very rarely it’s a plan b, and he knows how grateful he has to be for it. For people like you, companions, who keep him alive, saving the universe.

For a moment you wonder if your name will be engraved in one of the metal plates that circle around the Tardis, but you know you have not much more air left, so you don’t ask. The Tardis will surely reward her most faithful.

“This song ends now,” you whisper. The Doctor pulls you closer, your head resting in his lap, his hands soothing you with gentle strokes.

“I am sorry,” you hear him sniff, it has gone dark around you.

“Is it night? Already?” tears run down your face, trickling down onto the fabric of his trousers, getting soaked in. “I can’t… can’t see the stars.”

It’s probably good you can’t see the Doctor anymore. The always funny Doctor, the always grumpy Doctor, now a mess of emotions, silently sobbing, “They're still there. Don’t worry. Save and sound.”

Before your inner eye you can see them now, all of them. A wonder, spectacular and beautiful. “Yeah? Promise?” it’s merely a whisper.

“Promise.”

A shiver runs through you, the warmth is leaving you and for a second you wished the Tardis had crashed somewhere warmer. You feel the Doctor move, and bring his coat around your body, his odour crawls into your nose and you never have felt saver, “Doctor?”

“Yes?”

“Tell me about the stars,” one final bedtime story. “Tell me something I don’t know — an … an adventure.”

You hear his hard breaths, knowing he needs a moment to compose himself, “A long time ago, I met this girl… woman… she was the bravest person I ever met. Dedicated. Fearless. Faithful to everything she did and to everyone she followed,” he pauses for a short realization, “I wonder if she followed me or I her. Sometimes she was even funny, and a bit cheeky,” he chuckled and so do you. “Reckless also, and yes, I can’t remember a more braver person in all the universe. I owe her a lot.”

“Wow, seems like someone you should have introduced me to,” the darkness, a soothing warm place, coming around you. Hugging you, holding you, gently carrying you to another place, “W-what was her name?”

“I used to call her, … Miller-Smith.”

End.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> What can I say? It probably didn't happen what you thought what would happen when you started reading in Chapter 1, aside I have to say, that was always the plan. I never knew how it would happen, but I knew, there wouldn't be a happy end. Not for you. Nevertheless I hope you enjoyed this story, and maybe (from time to time) you find your way back to it. 
> 
> As always, I would love to read a comment, how liked it, the end, and everything. Don't hold back! I gave you death, so you can give me hell. 
> 
> Thanks for following this story, commenting on it and enjoying it. See ya round! Colepaldi-in-the-Tardis.tumblr.com


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